For All Eternity
by Okami SonicChaos
Summary: With darkness vanquished from Nippon, the sun goddess seemed destined to an eternity of peace and happiness. But life is never that simple...
1. Nightmare

With a start, Amaterasu woke.

It had been the same dream she had seen each night for the past 500 years. A dream of the past, a life of peace on the Celestial Plain, with the one she loved more than anything in this world. A dream of days when everything was right with the world, when no evil existed to threaten the lands below. A dream of days when the Sun Goddess could live life content, without need of worry.

A dream that always became the same nightmare. A memory of burning buildings, of the dying screams of the mortals around her. And in the center, a glowing sphere that radiated pure evil. Yami, the lord of darkness, the one Amaterasu had thought she had destroyed a millenium ago, had been lying in wait for those thousand years. Building his power while the faith in the gods dwindled, waiting patiently for the day when he was strong enough to return to the mortal world and smother the world with his darkness again.

When she first fought Yami on the Ark of Yamato, Amaterasu had barely come out victorious, succeeding only by the timely aid of her Celestial Envoy, Issun. But this time, she had not been as strong. A thousand years of peace led the mortals below to all but forget the old gods as civilizations rose and fell, as society came to care more for inventions of electricity and metal over the natural beauty the gods so tenderly cared for. And as their faith dwindled, so too did the gods' power. Amaterasu no longer had a Celestial Envoy to spread her praises. Compared to the restored Yami, the Sun Goddess was weak and alone.

Well, not entirely alone. As the end of all things drew near, there was one who never left her side. The prophet Waka, last known survivor of the Moon Tribe, the only one who Amaterasu loved more than the forests and flowers themselves. He knew as well as she did that neither of them could hope to stop the Dark Lord reborn, knew that the only outcome was both of their deaths. But he stood with her anyway, just like he had many years ago against Orochi on the Celestial Plain, for neither was willing to leave the other to their grim fate.

Despite the odds against them, they did not go without a fight. The battle seemed to go on for an eternity as Amaterasu and Waka traded blows with their greatest enemy. But with each blow, the pair felt their strength waning, while Yami showed no signs of weariness. Soon, the Sun Goddess found herself lying on the ground, bruised and bleeding. She attempted to get up, to snarl at the dark sphere, to strike one last blow on the abominable creature, but her strength had left her. She saw her beloved next to her, in no better shape, trying to use his remaining sword to support him as he pulled himself up, with no success. Above them, Yami floated, silently gloating, knowing that the sun would soon be extinguished forever. A dark glow came as he charged what would be the final blow.

Amaterasu knew she would not survive such an attack. Yami would drain her of her divinity, break her powers as he had a thousand years ago. But this time, there was no Issun to give her strength. She would lose her godhood, and her mortal body would break and perish from the dark power against her. There would be no reincarnation this time. She would die, and Yami would see his world of darkness a reality.

Silently, the wolf-goddess turned her head to look at her companion. Oh, how she wished she was still in her human form, so that she might spend her last moments in the arms of the one she loved! "Ma chérie..." he whispered to her, staring back, "There is another door."

Amaterasu knew of her beloved's prophetic abilities. He could see all the doors, past, present, and future, and, at times, could see the possibilities lying behind those doors. But she knew not what he could see in this situation. Neither of them could barely move, and even if they could, they did not have to strength to run, let alone fight.

"There is another door," he repeated to her, as if he hadn't quite believed it himself. Then the doubt in his eyes was gone, replaced by fierce determination. "Je suis désolé. There is no other way." Slowly, Waka managed to pull himself up. Raising his katana, he slashed a complex pattern through the air, then leapt towards their foe. But he did not attack. Instead, he stopped just in front of the dark sphere, seeming to float for a moment. He looked back at the goddess, who was desperately trying to get up, trying to do _anything_ to save her beloved from the doom she knew awaited him.

"Je t'aime, ma chérie."

And then, Waka's sword cut through the air, slicing through the fabric of time and space. Yami howled in rage as the wormhole drew him in, and redoubled his efforts, determined to at least kill the one who was about to ruin his plans for a world of darkness once again. In that moment, Amaterasu would have given anything to be able to speak, to tell Waka that she loved him as well, that she would miss him for the rest of eternity. But even if she had the strength to return to human form, she did not have the time. All she could do was let out a lonely howl as prophet and dark lord vanished into the darkness of the portal, as a blinding flash of light appeared as Yami unleashed his attack. She heard Waka's dying scream as the attack hit its mark.

And then, the portal was gone.

Amaterasu no longer had the strength to resist. Waka had managed to imprison Yami, lost somewhere in time and space, and in doing so, saved her divinity, but the battle beforehand had taken too much of her, and she no longer had the will to fight fate. The goddess felt her spirit leave her mortal shell, felt the Brush Gods leave her to take refuge in the stars above. She knew she would not die. Her mortal form would turn to stone for a century as her spirit recovered its strength. But it did not matter.

As the wolf became encased in stone, a single tear dropped from the Sun Goddess's eyes. Yes, she would return. But she would be alone.

Forever.

_End of Chapter 1_

* * *

Well, that was a bit of a depressing introduction! I had originally planned for this chapter to be less about Ammy and Waka's fight against Yami and more about Ammy reminiscing about her life on the Celestial Plain, but it was just so much more _cruel_ to start off this way. Plus, an event that takes away eternal love and happiness for our favorite wolf goddess deserves more than just a couple of paragraphs.

Things should brighten up for the sun goddess in later chapters, but still, I can't help but feel bad for Ammy. To live an eternity knowing the one you love is lost forever... Immortality truly can be a curse, I suppose.

Constructive feedback is always appreciated :)

French translations for those of you who are too lazy to use Google:

_ma chérie _= my dear  
_je suis désolé = _I'm sorry  
_je t'aime _= I love you


	2. Sun and Moon

_Author's Note:_

Hey, everyone. Thank you for all of your reviews and support of the first chapter, here's hoping to keep things going.

Starting in this chapter, you'll see some mention of characters from Shinto mythology who for some reason or another didn't end up in the games (or if they did, in a completely different or unrelated role to their role in the Shinto pantheon). So as to not spoil anything, I won't mention any of said characters here, but I will have the background myths explained in some detail at the ending notes to each chapter for the characters introduced. I'll also start updating my profile with said details for each character as well for quick reference. So, if you ever find yourself confused by a character that you don't recognize, check in one of those two places to figure out a bit more of the context.

**Note that this chapter also contains some spoilers for Okami.** Granted the game is eight years old so I'd be amazed if anybody reading this hasn't played it, but I have to cover myself.

Thanks for your continued support and enjoy!

* * *

It was a quiet night on the Celestial Plain. Yumigami's starlight shone over the night sky, the stars in her night sky silent beacons of brilliance in the black of space.

It was late. Though there may have been some on the mortal world still up at this time of night, on the Plain, there wasn't a soul still awake besides the rabbit who watched over the night sky.

That is, not a soul aside from the wolf who sat in silence, keeping a vigil watch over the land of the gods from his perch on the edge of the Plain.

Tsukuyomi, god of the moon, could sense the feelings of unrest coming from the palace. He knew full well who it came from, too. The goddess of the sun, the greatest of all the Brush Gods, Amaterasu-Ōmikami. His sister.

The wolf turned away from his perch and took a few steps back towards the palace, stopping at the edge of a nearby pond. The moonlight that he protected illuminated the pond before him, showing his reflection like a mirror.

The moon god started at it for a moment. Looking back it him was a proud, dark-furred wolf, pelt shining a dark purple, eyes a golden yellow like the moon itself. On his back sat a long, silver blade, the same blade that had once sealed away the great demon Orochi, harnessing the lunar god's every spirit to keep the mighty beast at bay until it could be slain for good.

It had taken a hundred years of imprisonment within that blade, but finally, Orochi, and the demons that haunted the land with him, had been destroyed. Destroyed by no other than the same goddess who was now lying awake, forever followed by the loneliness and despair she had felt since Yami's return.

It had been 521 years since that day. The sun goddess had lost count long ago, but Tsukuyomi had kept count with startling accuracy. For every night for those past five hundred years, he had sensed the same feeling of unrest.

As the moon god looked away from the pond and continued towards the palace, he sighed. He and his sister had certainly had their quarrels growing up, as you might expect from two siblings with divine powers, but they had always cared for each other, and the dark-furred wolf hated his inability to help the sun goddess with the demons that had plagued her since that dark day.

Oh, he had tried. Each day, he encouraged her to go outside, to run around in the fields and cherry blossoms of their peaceful home like she had in the days when evil had been but a distant memory. And each day, his offer was met with cold refusal. She would still head into the forests every now and then, but never to frolic around and play with the other Brush Gods like she used to. Every time he had found her out there, she would be sitting alone in some hidden place, staring at the beauty around her and wishing that she had the ability to turn back time.

But for all the sun goddess's power, that was one thing that she simply was not capable of. Time moved at its own rhythm, one that not even the gods themselves could change. All the moon god could do was sit with his sister in silence, trying to bring her a comfort that would never come.

Tsukuyomi turned away from his thoughts as he approached the steps of the palace. He looked at the large balcony several floors up, where his sister undoubtedly tried her best to sleep past the nightmare that haunted. For a moment, he considered going up there, trying to to help her and give her some semblance of peace, but he knew that the demons following her were her own. As much as he might wish to, he could not exorcise them. Only his sister had the power to do that.

And so, the moon god laid down at his guard post on the steps of the palace, and continued to watch over the world, sending silent prayers that his sister would find the strength to throw off her grief and live again as she once had.

Out of the bushes near him, a rabbit hopped out, looking at him curiously. The wolf gave the small creature a smile, knowing it was no ordinary rabbit. At his thoughts, a soft golden glow came from the creature, fading to reveal a stunning young maiden with golden hair. Yumigami.

The goddess of the night slowly sat next to him, running a hand through his fur. "She still cannot sleep," she whispered. As the other deity of the night sky, the goddess was just as aware of what bothered Amaterasu as Tsukuyomi was.

Tsukuyomi nodded softly. "I wish there was some way we could help her, Yumi," he said, "Her light has dulled ever since that dark day and we can do naught but pray for her."

"Can you blame her?" the lunar maiden replied, "She has lost a love that was meant to be eternal. The one she cares most for now lies in a world she can never reach." She paused. "Not even your father could bring back the dead, Tsuki."

The moon god shifted a bit at the mention of his father. Izanagi's attempt to bring back his lost wife from the afterlife ended in failure, and it was that experience that brought about the birth of the moon god and his sister. Tsukuyomi hoped that his sister would never try such a thing. The afterlife was a place not even divine beings dared alter.

He turned back to the golden maiden next to him. "Only she can release herself from her despair. I wish she would see that."

Yumigami shook her head a little. "It's not as easy as it sounds, Tsuki. Losing that much is something hard to recover from" She gave him a playful grin. "You'd probably feel the same way if anything were to happen to me."

"You are a Brush God. You at least could return to me," he responded, "Ushiwaka does not have that luxury."

"No, he doesn't." She looked down at the mortal world below in sadness. After a few moments, she turned back to him, a mischievous gleam in her eye. "I might have an idea."

Tsukuyomi shook his head, chuckling a bit. "You always do, Yumi," he said, "It's just a question whether or not it's a good one."

Yumigami looked hurt. "Tsukuyomi, are you implying that some of my ideas _aren't_ fantastic and brilliant in every way?"

He rolled his eyes in response. "Only some of them."

He was lying. Yumigami had a tendency to become easily bored, and her plans usually involved in one or both of them getting in trouble growing up. More often than not the latter, to his dismay. But his sister was in such a desperate state, Tsukuyomi was willing to try anything to help her. Even if it meant going along with Yumigami's half-baked schemes.

The moon god sighed. "Alright. What is it?"

The rabbit-girl gave him a sly smirk. "I hear there's a big festival planned on the mortal world over the next couple of days," she began.

Tsukuyomi did not like where this was going.

"Festivals are always so full of life, of cheerfulness." She beamed as she stood up, dancing a bit as she continued. "Happy people walking through the streets, revelers dancing around to the music… For a couple days, everyone relaxes and just _lives_."

She stopped her little dance and looked back at him, face suddenly serious. "And I think our sun goddess needs to live more than anything right now, wouldn't you say?"

The moon god shook his head. "You are certifiably crazy, Yumigami."

She flashed him that sly grin again. "Admit it. You liked it."

"I will do no such thing."

The maiden rolled her eyes. "You're going to bring her there, aren't you."

He sighed again. As much as he hated visiting the mortal world, Yumigami was right. His sister was missing the spark of life, and perhaps a couple days on the mortal world could start to bring back that lively spirit. He looked back at the goddess of the night and nodded.

Once more that smirk showed on her face. "Don't cause too much of a mess down there, Tsuki."

With that, the golden glow reappeared, and the rabbit leapt back into the bushes and out of sight.

Tsukuyomi stood up and looked back at the world below as the first beams of dawn broke the sky. As much as he hated to admit it, Yumigami's plan was actually decent. Now he just had to talk his sister into it. "This'll be fun," he thought to himself as he walked towards the regal doors to the palace.

Amaterasu yawned as she woke, stretching a bit. She still couldn't sleep well. The first light of the sun peeked in through the window, as if to encourage it's goddess to get out of her comfortable bed. Reluctantly, the wolf-girl did so, slowly climbing out of her bed and walking over to the balcony to look out at the red orb that had disturbed her slumber.

Below her, forests of bright pink petals colored the land, the Celestial Plain a thing of pristine beauty as it always was. The smell of cherry blossoms wafted through the air as the world below her came to life.

It was a pretty sight, she admitted. But not even the beauty of nature itself could mend the wound in the sun goddess's heart. "It would be so much more beautiful with you," she thought wistfully.

A knock at the door snapped her out of her thoughts. Amaterasu sighed. "Go away," she yelled back at the incessant sound coming from the door. Her visitor didn't seem to get the message, and the knocking continued. She tried to ignore it as best she could. "_Leave me alone,_" she called back in annoyance. Still the knocking continued.

The wolf-girl huffed in frustration, finally walking towards the accursed sound. "Tsukuyomi," she yelled, "If that's you again I swear I'm going to grab you and throw you off the edge of the Plain."

"Open the door and do it, then," her brother called out from behind the door. Amaterasu shifted into her wolf form, slamming through the door with a growl. She looked around, trying to find the source of her ire.

To her left, Tsukuyomi spoke. "Sleep well, dear sister?"

She gave him an annoyed glare. He was one of the gods who watched over the night. Of course he knew the answer to that question.

He shook his head. "Come outside, Ammy. I've got an idea I want to run by you."

Amaterasu shifted back to her true form - a radiant human girl with long, flowing hair as white as snow, her wolf ears and tail the only reminder of her alternate form. "I tell you every day, Tsuki," she said, "I don't want to go outside."

"It'll be fun." He gave her a little smile. "Yumigami had an interesting idea…"

The sun goddess did a double take. She knew her brother wasn't the biggest fan of the rabbit's ideas. It took something special for him to call one of her plans 'interesting.' "Okay," she replied, "What's this big idea?"

The moon god simply walked back towards the stairs, gesturing for her to follow. "Come outside and I'll tell you."

Amaterasu growled in annoyance. All she wanted to do was to slam the door shut and sleep for a week (or at least try to), but her curiosity got the best of her. After taking a moment to get changed, she found herself outside the doors to the palace, looking out over the edge of the Plain with her brother.

"Okay Tsuki," she said as she approached him, "I'm outside. Now what's this plan you have?"

He looked back at her. "Yumi tells me there's supposed to be a festival on the mortal world for the next couple of days…"

Her jaw nearly dropped in shock. After Susano had released Orochi so many years ago, her brother had come to despise humanity. He was the last person she would expect to suggest a trip to the mortal realm.

The sungoddess felt a pang of sadness as she thought of Susano. All her mortal friends from her time in Nippon were long gone now. Just one of the many perks of being immortal. She missed them all - Susano, Kushi, but most of all Issun. The little Poncle had been an annoying little thing, and she probably would've gotten into a lot less trouble without his big mouth, but he had been a great friend to her. Were it not for him, she wouldn't have stood a chance against Yami when they fought on the Ark of Yamato.

She blinked away the tears in her eyes. How long had it been since she visited the mortal world? Had she even gone back after Waka perished on the streets of Florence so long ago? She couldn't remember, but it had certainly been centuries.

Amaterasu thought for a moment. As much as she hated to admit it, the festival did sound fun. She had always loved going to visit the annual festival in Kamiki Village in the years after her travels in Nippon. And it had been such a long time since she last visited the mortal world… It would at least be interesting to see what's changed since then. Say what you will about humans, they certainly were ingenious, and the contraptions they managed to come up always surprised her.

Tsukuyomi stared at her, waiting for an answer. "Okay," she said, "Let's do it. But only for a couple days."

The moon god smiled, glad his sister had agreed without too much trouble. In fact, she almost seemed excited about it - at least, as excited as she got about anything as of late.

As Amaterasu prepared for their trip with more energy than he had seen from her in years, Tsukuyomi felt himself feeling hopeful.

Perhaps this idea would work after all.

* * *

To clear up the timeline: I consider the events of Okami to have occurred around 248 AD, as this was the year the real-life Queen Himiko died in ancient Japan. Amaterasu's second fight with Yami which led to Waka's death occurred in Renaissance Italy (Florence) in 1493, over a thousand years later. The current chapter occurs in the present day (2014).

Constructive feedback is always appreciated :)

**Some mythology notes for the characters mentioned in this chapter:**

_Amaterasu_: Amaterasu-Ōmikami is commonly used as Ammy's full name in Shinto myths, derived from Amateru ("shining in heaven") and ōmikami (essentially "great god"). Literally, her full name translates to "The great god who shines in heaven." "Okami" also translates to "great god/spirit," and in the games it seems like they use this term in place of "Ōmikami", but as far as accuracy to Shinto myths goes "Ōmikami" is technically the correct term.

_Tsukuyom_i: Although the game refers to Tsukuyomi as Nagi's sword which was used to slay True Orochi, in Shinto myths Tsukuyomi is actually considered to be the god of the moon and Amaterasu's brother. He, Amaterasu, and Susanoo (the god of storms) were born when their father Izanagi cleansed himself after attempting to revive his wife from the afterlife. Amaterasu was born when he cleansed his left eye, Tsukuyomi when he cleansed his right eye, and Susanoo when he cleansed his nose. Original myths show Amaterasu hating Tsukuyomi after he kills Uke Mochi (god of food), hence why the sun and moon never shine at the same time, but later renditions of the myth show Susanoo as the one killing Mochi instead. I use the later telling of the myth in this story, as Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi are too amicable to each other in this chapter for the earlier rendition to make sense.

_Yumigami_: As far as I can tell, Yumigami actually doesn't exist in the Shinto pantheon. It's possible she took the place of Tsukuyomi in the games, as she is described as the goddess of the moon in Okami, but there's not much evidence either way. As I use Tsukuyomi as a character in this story, I assume her role to be shared with him - Tsukuyomi controls the moon, while Yumigami controls the stars and night sky. Also threw in some romance between the two because why not.


	3. To Live

Despite his dislike of the mortal world, Tsukuyomi couldn't help but smile at his sister's renewed spirits as the two divine beings walked through the crowded streets, surrounded by the citizens of the city who were happily enjoying the festivities. On both sides of the street, a number of stalls had been set up by shop-owners and craftsmen looking to show off their work, and behind them, the beautiful cherry blossoms that the humans were celebrating.

The moon god was surprised, and somewhat impressed. In recent centuries it seemed like humans tended to scorn nature, preferring their technology and machines of electricity and metal over the natural beauty around them. As their settlements grew, the surrounding nature suffered. He couldn't help but be reminded of the Moon Tribe, how their once-beautiful world became replaced by a barren world covered with the golden cities of that advanced race. Silently, Tsukuyomi hoped that this world wouldn't suffer the same fate.

His thoughts were distracted by his sister's merry form in front of him as she bounded between stalls with remarkable enthusiasm. She had chosen to come in her human form, casting a minor illusion to disguise her divine markings, wolf ears, and tail. Tsukuyomi had done the same - they had decided it would be best to appear as normal as possible during their visit, as they would not be staying long.

She ran up to him. "Come on, Tsuki," she said, grabbing his hand and pulling him forward, "Chibiterasu is staying somewhere near here, and it's been far too long since I've seen him."

The moon god turned his thoughts to his nephew. After Amaterasu had lost herself years ago, her son had offered to watch over the mortal world in her stead while she recovered. He had certainly done a fine job at it over the years, but his work led to him rarely having the chance to visit with his mother. Not being able to see her pup hadn't helped Amaterasu's spirits over the years.

The two gods soon found themselves at the exterior of a large temple. To Tsukuyomi's surprise, the place looked to be in fairly good shape. Most likely Chibiterasu's handiwork, considering the lack of humans with faith these days. The building itself reminded him of his sister's palace on the Celestial Plain - it would seem that her son had taken inspiration from the sun palace for his own home.

As they approached the open doors, a young man with short silver hair stepped forward to meet them. Though Chibiterasu also hid the more prominent features of his divinity, the resemblance was easy to spot. Only the child of the sun could seemingly radiate light the way this man's aura did.

Amaterasu did a double take as she saw her son for the first time in centuries. Although gods didn't age, they were able to take any form they wished, and she would've sworn her son had taken a much younger form when she last saw him. She remembered how she often heard parents during her time on Nippon commenting on how fast their children grew, and suddenly understood what they had felt. Her son had certainly grown up from when he had been a little wolf pup.

The sun goddess was taken from her thoughts as her son wrapped her in a warm embrace.

"It's good to see you again, Mom," Chibiterasu said, "Though it's a little surprising to see you on the human world again."

Amaterasu raised an eyebrow in confusion. Unlike her brother, she enjoyed the mortal world, watching its denizens as they carried out their simple lives. Why would it be so surprising to see her here?

Her son seemed to catch on to her unspoken question. "Mom," he answered, somewhat concerned, "you do know you haven't visited this world since Italy 500 years ago… Right?"

That couldn't have been right, the goddess thought to herself. Surely she had visited at some point over the years, at the very least stopped by once to see Chibiterasu… hadn't she? But as the sun goddess went back through her memories, she slowly realized that her son was right. She had never been able to bring herself to come back after that dreadful day. The world had changed so much over the centuries, yet she had been oblivious to it.

Her brother watched as the realization dawned on her. To him, and many of the Brush Gods, it had been painfully obvious that the once-exuberant goddess wasn't even aware of how she had changed. She had been too caught up in grief and longing to notice the life she was missing out on.

The sun goddess was at a loss for words. How much of of the past 500 years had she spent locked in her bedroom, refusing to look out at the world below? She remembered a few trips out into the forests of the Celestial Plain, visiting places that had been special to her once and remembering better days, but those treks had been few and far between.

She looked at the town around them. Although the settlement they were in was smaller, and had a much more traditional appearance, in the distance, she could see the metal peaks of the place that she had once known as Sei'an City. When had the old buildings she had known been torn down to make way for the towers of steel and glass that now dotted the skyline? "I never realized how much I missed…"

The child of the sun followed her gaze to the distant city. It was good to see that his mother was finally aware of how she had shut herself out from the world. Perhaps now that she knew this, she would be able to bring herself to live again, to become the cheerful, happy-go-lucky spirit that he had grown up knowing.

An idea started to form in his head, and he tried to fight the smirk forming on his face. "I have a feeling you want to visit Sei'an."

Amaterasu looked back at her son, nodding. Although she much preferred the natural beauty of the plains and forests to the steel jungle of the faraway city, she was more than a little curious as to just what humanity had been up to while she wasn't watching.

Chibiterasu grinned. "Let's go pay it a visit then."

It took the better part of the rest of the day for the three divine beings to reach their destination. The sun had long set by the time they were walking alongside the modern spires, the air now lit by the glow of the street signs and the light from the strange posts that had been constructed alongside the city's roads.

Tsukuyomi shifted uncomfortably as they walked. He hadn't enjoyed being near so many human presences at the festival, but at least that place was still close to nature. The place they were at now was much less familiar. Any signs of nature were hard to come by, the buildings of glass and metal seeming alien compared to the natural beauty of the Celestial Plain. The greatly increased human presence didn't make him feel any better, either.

He looked up at the stars shining above, twinkling at him almost playfully. Considering that was Yumigami's domain, they probably were. "Why do I let you talk me into these things," he mumbled under his breath, shaking his head.

In the back of his mind, a mental voice responded. _You're so boring,_ Yumigami's soft voice whispered. A flash of gold caught his eye, and to the side, he noticed a familiar rabbit, looking almost comically out of place compared to the modern city around her.

The rabbit winked at him, and then suddenly, she was next to him.

"Your brother's no fun, Ammy," the now-human Yumigami said, wrapping an arm around the aforementioned moon god as she did so.

Amaterasu looked back at the goddess of the night, a bit startled by her sudden appearance. "Yumi?"

Her son was much less surprised to see the golden-haired maiden. She did watch over the night, and with her playful nature, the nightlife of the human city was a common attraction for her. He had a feeling that she knew what he had planned.

His suspicions were quickly confirmed. "Heading to a certain party, Chibi?" she asked, knowing full well the answer. Even though Chibiterasu took his duties watching over the mortal world seriously, at his core lied the same carefree spirit his mother once had, and she had seen him at some of the nighttime festivities the city had to offer on more than one occasion.

As he confirmed her suspicions, Yumigami couldn't help but admit that the young god's plan was a good one. If Amaterasu still had any of that happy-go-lucky spirit left that her son had inherited, a night out on the town would probably do her good. After all, the whole point of bringing her to the mortal world was to get her to live.

The sun goddess was curious by now, wondering just where they were heading. "Either of you care to tell me where we're going?"

"Don't worry," the goddess of the stars responded, "You'll like it." Yumigami brushed a little closer to the moon god next to her, looking back at him. "Tsuki, on the other hand, probably won't."

As Chibiterasu led them into a building, Tsukuyomi sighed. The lunar deity had a feeling this night wasn't going to end anytime soon.

The first thing Amaterasu noticed as she entered the building was the sound. It was loud, almost unbearably so, the room they were now in seemingly shaking in response to its volume. She quickly looked around, trying to find the source of the noise amid the flashing lights in various colors around the room. There were no instruments that she could see, other than a pair of discs some man on the stage was hovered over. As best as she could tell, the sound seemed to be coming from some giant black boxes to either side of the stage.

No matter where it came from, though, she knew beats and patterns when she heard them. It may not have been any type of instrument that she recognized, but it was clearly supposed to be music. It took her ears a minute to adjust to the volume, but she had to admit that it wasn't bad.

Behind her, her brother clearly had a very different opinion. "They call this music?" the moon god asked with disgust. "Are humans today such bad dancers that they need beats _this_ loud to dance?"

Yumigami laughed. "They don't," she replied, giving him a playful bump, "but if your clumsy attempt back on our seijin-no-hi was any indication of your dancing skills, _you_ might."

Tsukuyomi's face briefly flushed with embarrassment. "You promised not to bring that up," he said, "and it wasn't."

The goddess of the night laughed again. "Prove it." Before he could react, she was leading him by the hand towards the mass of revealing partygoers.

Amaterasu couldn't help but laugh as Yumigami dragged a very-nervous moon god into the crowd of dancers. How her brother was able to put up with the goddess's playful antics all the time, she had no idea.

As the night went on, the sun goddess found herself quickly losing herself in the music, moving to the beat and living in a way she hadn't for ages. Silently, she thanked the three other divine beings who had brought her here. How long had it last been since she was able to forget everything and just live? How long had she shut herself away, clinging to the past and ignoring the world that moved on without her? How long would she have stayed that way if her brother hadn't talked her into going on this trip?

She didn't know the answer to most of those questions, and truthfully, she didn't really want to. And so she just stayed there, continuing to dance, to lose herself and the past that had haunted her for so long in the merriment that surrounded her.

Hours passed, but she didn't really notice, too entranced by the scene around her and too focused in living in the moment to care. Tsukuyomi came to her at some point, mentioning something about heading back to the Celestial Plain and "never being able to hear properly again." Chibiterasu had to leave soon after, not wanting to leave the temple unattended for too long, leaving only the goddesses of the sun and the stars.

She saw glimpses of Yumigami through the crowd here and there, clearly enjoying herself, the goddess of the night in her element amid the nightlife. Despite ruling over opposite sides of the sky, the two goddesses shared similar personalities, much to Tsukuyomi's chagrin while they were growing up, the serious lunar deity often being the target of their playful antics.

The sun goddess's thoughts were disrupted as she felt herself bump into a figure behind her, breaking her from the trance she had fallen into. She turned around, looking to see what she had ran into, and saw a she had managed to accidentally knock a human man to the ground.

"I'm sorry," she said, offering a hand to help him up. As he got up, she managed to get a good look at him, and froze. He was young, probably in his late-twenties, but what had drawn her attention was his hair, a long, bright gold, almost bending light the way Yumigami's did.

It looked far too familiar.

The youth quickly brushed himself off. "Don't worry about it," he replied with a slight smile. He stretched out a hand in greeting. "I'm Yuro."

His voice brought her back to reality. Amaterasu felt herself feeling almost disappointed at hearing his name, as if some part of her had been hoping that somehow the figure in front of her had been her love brought back to life. She managed to stammer out an "Ammy" in response, still a bit shaken by how much he resembled Waka.

He offered her a dance, and she hesitated. This time tomorrow, she would be back on the Celestial Plain. Did she dare to grow attached to someone again? Particularly someone who, no matter what, she would outlive, thanks to the curse of immortality?

The song shifted, becoming more upbeat as if in response, and she shook off her worries. The whole point of this trip was to be able to lose herself, to be able to live again. What was the point in going back to dwelling on that she couldn't control?

With a little smile, she took his hand, and the two waded into the crowd of dancers. As they danced, Amaterasu slipped back into her memories, remembering the first dance she had shared with Waka two thousand years ago.

It had been the night of her twentieth birthday. The other gods had put together a party to celebrate her coming-of-age, one of the largest gatherings to have been held on the Celestial Plain in years. Waka had asked her to accompany him, as friends - after all, they had grown up together, him being the same age as her when they had first found the Ark of Yamato crashed on the edge of the Plain, and they had always done almost everything with each other since then. She had felt terrible having to turn him down, having already accepted an offer from a Celestial boy who had seemed nice enough at the time.

She had tried to set him up with someone else but he politely turned down her offer, preferring to go alone, to the goddess's dismay. Throughout the night she spotted glimpses of him, socializing with some of the other Brush Gods here and there but mostly staying to himself, clearly trying to look like he was enjoying himself. Seeing his obvious discomfort didn't help her feel any better about herself.

A couple hours into the party, she had finally managed to slip away from her date for a few moments. Waka was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice her as she snuck towards him.

She lightly laid a hand on his shoulder. "You look like you're having the time of your life, Ushiwaka," she said, giving him a slight grin.

"Clearly," he replied, answering with the same amount of sarcasm. He paused a moment. "How's your date going?"

Amaterasu looked over at the aforementioned Celestial, who in the short time she was away had already managed to consume an unhealthy amount of sake. He was now trying to hit on Kabegami, having managed to confuse the goddess of catwalk with his date in his inebriated state, much to the feline goddess's annoyance.

The sun goddess turned back to her oldest friend, laughing a bit at Kabegami's attempts to escape from the awkward situation she found herself in. "Brilliantly, as you can see."

She turned back to watch the spectacle for a moment, lost in thought, then turned back to him. "Waka," she said, "Do you think it's appropriate for the guest of honor to bail on her own party?"

"Probably not, ma chérie," he replied, looking back at her.

For a second, she lost herself in those deep blue eyes, blushing a bit at his nickname for her. Quickly, she glanced back at the mass of partygoers. Her "date" was now attempting to waltz as best as he could with Kabegami, to his partner's obvious discomfort. The goddess of catwalk looked at her, pleadingly.

Amaterasu mouthed a quick "sorry" to her fellow goddess, and looked back at her golden-haired companion. "I'm doing it anyway," she said, not giving him any time to argue as she grabbed his hand and quickly made towards the nearest exit.

They snuck away to a small spring hidden within the nearby forests. It had been a common hideout for them over the years, it's proximity to the Celestial's village making it a great place to hide from retribution for any of their mischief growing up.

She ran over and sat on the overturned tree they often used as a sort of bench, gesturing for him to sit next to her. He did so, and she looked at him for a moment.

"I'm would've said yes," she said, softly.

Waka looked back at her, confused.

"The dance," she clarified, seeing his questioning look, "When you asked me. I would've said yes." She sighed, looking away for a moment. "I just didn't think you would have the courage to ask, and when he asked me first…" She shook her head, trailing off, and leaned over, resting her head on his shoulder. "I'm sorry."

They rested like that for a moment, enjoying each other and the peaceful scene around them. In the distance, Waka could still hear the music from the party they had just slipped away from, the melodies drifting out across the Plain with the wind.

He stood up and offered a hand. "We never did get the chance to dance, ma chérie."

Amaterasu smiled back at him, shaking her head a bit. Taking his hand, she got up and the two proceeded to slow-dance in time with the distant sound. The same tango Waka would briefly share with her on the entrance to the Ark of Yamato many years later.

For a while, the two danced to the drifting notes, until the moment was interrupted by the sound of rustling leaves and giggling as someone approached their hideaway. Quickly, Amaterasu pulled Waka into the foliage, slipping away from the spring as she recognized Yumigami's laugh.

As it turns out, her brother and Yumigami had the same idea as the two of them. Amaterasu watched with a pang of jealousy as the intruders embraced and shared a brief kiss.

Waka laid a hand on her shoulder, trying to draw her away. "Come, ma chérie," he whispered, "We'll find someplace else."

As they stealthily moved away, Amaterasu looked back at the two behind them and swore she saw Yomigami wink at her as they left.

The sun goddess snapped out of her memories as the goddess of the stars gave her the same wink in the present day, having noticed the youth Amaterasu was now dancing with.

Amaterasu quickly looked away, back at the aforementioned youth. Her thoughts raced, torn between the moment she was in now and the memories of the past. She again took in the form of the golden-haired boy next to her. She hardly knew him, but he seemed nice enough, and seemed like he cared for her from the few conversations they managed to have amid the noisy club around them.

But it wasn't the same.

She broke away from him mid-song. She met his gaze for a moment, then quickly looked away. "I'm sorry," she stammered, "I… I can't do this right now." The sun goddess backed away a few steps, then turned and ran.

A part of her wanted to turn back as she heard Yuro call after her, but she couldn't bring herself to do so. For all the progress she had made that day, the pain Yami had caused her still had a hold on her.

She was vaguely aware of him chasing after her as she pushed through the door back out into the street, quickly turning the corner. As soon as she was out of sight, she shifted to her wolf form, sprinting a ways away as the youth exited the building as well.

Looking for a place to hide, she noticed a shorter building and quickly summoned Kabegami's power to her, scaling the wall and ducking underneath the ledge on the roof above. After a moment, she shifted back to her human form, peeking up over the ledge out at the city below.

On the street she had just left, Yuro looked around in confusion, trying to find any trace of the mysterious girl he had been chasing with no success. Amaterasu sighed, a pang of regret in her heart, and turned back to see a certain feline goddess waiting for her.

Unlike the rest of the gods that had visited the mortal world with the sun goddess that day, Kabegami didn't bother to hide her divinity, her cat ears and tail clearly noticeable in her human form. Aside from having slightly shorter hair, and having feline features instead of Amaterasu's wolf ears and tail, the two goddesses looked fairly similar, one of the main reasons Kabegami had been mistaken for Amaterasu several times back on the Celestial Plain.

The goddess of catwalk gave her a mischievous grin. "You should thank me," Kabegami said, "I could've chosen not to help you as revenge for leaving me with your drunken friend years ago." She chuckled a bit. "So what was your problem with him? Rude? Too pushy? Only after one thing?"

Amaterasu looked down at the ground for a moment while the feline goddess listed off all the things that might've caused the sun goddess to flee the situation she had been in. "None of those things, Kabe," she replied quietly, "He was nice. I liked him."

Kabegami raised an eyebrow at her in disbelief. "So you were sprinting out of there in a panic because he was _nice_?"

"It wasn't the same," the sun goddess whispered in response.

The half-cat girl next to her shook her head, knowing what she meant. "Girl, you're a lost cause," she replied, exasperated. After a moment, Kabegami snapped her fingers, summoning her byōbu, which opened to reveal a portal back to the Celestial Plain.

She looked back at the sun goddess for a moment. "Not too late to turn back, you know," she said, then turned and entered the portal, leaving it open long enough for her companion to enter if she so wished.

Amaterasu looked back to the street for a moment, half-considering her fellow goddess's suggestion of going back, but the streets were empty. Yuro had either given up on his search or had gone elsewhere to look for her. Even if she wanted to turn back, there was no guarantee she could find him again.

And so, the sun goddess turned back to the portal to her peaceful home, and stepped through.

* * *

Firstly, thank you guys for the continued support of my work, both on this and on "Blood Moon." It really does mean a lot and I'm glad you guys are enjoying my stories as much as I enjoy writing them. I wish I could reply to every review I get but unfortunately FanFiction only allows you to reply to those submitted by users with an account, so I can't do so, but consider this my response to all of those I can't respond to individually. You guys are awesome.

As far as this chapter goes, this is my third revision, and I still feel very mixed about it. I previously completely scrapped it twice, and one of the revisions actually ended up becoming "Blood Moon" since I still enjoyed the story it told, I just couldn't get it to flow naturally into this story. I like the third revision much better than the first two, but it came out a lot longer than I wanted it to and jumped around a bit more than originally intended. I kind of wished I split it into two separate chapters, considering the amount of new characters and locations contained in one at the moment, but there wasn't really anywhere where things naturally broke up to split it. If I ever rewrite this, I'd probably want to expand on the festival itself and put the flashback and bits taking place in Sei'an City into a separate chapter.

I did enjoy writing the club scene though, partly because it seems like an interesting setting for Ammy to be in. After all, she's known for her "happy-go-lucky" personality and taking pleasure in living, and the whole point of modern club music is to kind of just lose yourself in the moment. Feels like something that would fit with her personality, and certainly something that she could use after everything I've put her through in the first couple chapters.

For those who aren't aware Sei'an City = Kyoto, which was the real-life equivalent of Sei'an City in ancient Japan.

The "seijin-no-hi" Yumigami refers to is a traditional holiday practiced in Japan that celebrates coming-of-age, it takes place the second Monday of January and celebrates all those who have turned 20 (or will turn 20) between April 2nd of the previous year and April 1st of the current one. This tradition used to only celebrate those who were exactly 20 on the day of the ceremony but the practice was changed to the current early-April cutoff when the holiday was switched from its old day of January 15th each year to the current "second Monday of January" rule.

A byōbu is a type of folding screen and is what Kabegami is climbing on when she is met in Okami.

In other news, Yumigami is a total flirt, and Kabegami can hold a grudge for a _long_ time. That little Ammy/Waka scene was prior to the events of Okami (at least 200 years, to be precise, since Ammy was turned to stone for 100 and waited for the birth of Nagi for 100 before that), and the events of Okami occurred in 248 AD, so it's been just around 2,000 years since that little incident by the time the events of this chapter occurred.

As always, constructive feedback is always appreciated!


	4. Typhoon

Standing on the balcony of his apartment, Yuro looked out at the moonlit city below him.

He had gotten back home just minutes before, having finally giving up after spending the better part of an hour searching for the mysterious girl he had met earlier. Thoughts of that same maiden still haunted him as he watched the sleeping city of Kyoto.

Although the youth normally wouldn't be so consumed by a girl he had only just met and barely knew, there was something different about her. He remembered how her snow-white hair seemingly radiated light, how her vibrant green eyes seemed to contain all the forests in the world, how her smile seemed like it could move the heavens itself. He had never seen anything quite like it.

And yet, it all looked so _familiar_. And her name, Ammy… He knew nobody with that name, yet he would've sworn that he'd heard that name before.

No matter how hard he tried, Yuro simply could not shake that feeling of familiarity. He stood there in thought as the minutes passed, trying to jar his memory, to find out why it was he felt like he had known her from somewhere before, but nothing came to him.

He wished she hadn't run off like that, so that he could have had the chance to talk to her a bit longer, perhaps figure out where he knew her from, but she had vanished without a trace. Even if she hadn't, he didn't quite know what he would've said. She probably would've thought he was crazy if he asked her about that feeling of familiarity. Perhaps he was, his mind just playing tricks on him, refusing to let him forget about that girl.

The rumbling of distant thunder took him from his thoughts. Startled, Yuro looked up towards the sky. All night it had been completely clear of clouds, the moon and stars shining brightly over the city. But now, in the distance, he could see large, dark clouds starting to gather as the storm approached. It wasn't supposed to storm tonight, but weather always proved to be something difficult to predict with perfect accuracy.

He turned to go back inside, to shut the windows in preparation for the impending deluge, when he heard the sound of thunder a second time, this time much louder. It had been much closer that time. Closer than it should have been.

The youth looked back towards the coming storm, most of the sky now covered in dark clouds where there had not been any moments before. Something was wrong. There was no way any storm could come on this suddenly, move this fast.

Suddenly, there was a flash of light as a bolt of lightning struck a building across the street, rain pouring down in buckets, the wind howling fiercely, strong enough to shake the lampposts below at a dangerous rate. The sound of thunder became a constant clapping as arcs of electricity rained down from the sky.

Quickly, Yuro shut the doors to the balcony, running through the halls to close off the windows from the monstrous weather outdoors. Outside, the sound of sirens blared, and he could sense the rising panic in the city around him. As he looked up to the sky once more, he froze in shock.

Above, the dark clouds swirled, casting down rain and electricity towards the people below as it moved towards a small circle in the center of the vortex. The youth looked on in horror as he recognized the shape of the clouds above.

A typhoon.

Far above the deadly storm clouds over the land once known as Nippon, the Celestial Plain floated serenely, oblivious to the disaster below. There, in the gods' grand palace, Amaterasu rested peacefully a rare occurrence for the sun goddess since that fateful day in Italy half a millennium ago.

Clearly, her excursion to the mortal world had done her some good, the nightmare of Waka's death leaving her alone for the first time she could remember, much to the goddess's relief. It had been far too long since she had been able to get a good night's sleep, which, for the goddess who had become notorious for her habit of constantly taking naps back when she had first traveled to Nippon, was not a pleasant experience.

Truthfully, she still felt conflicted, a part of her regretting her rapid exit from that world, and another glad she had not taken the chance to expose herself to what would have been inevitable heartbreak and suffering. After all, even if she had stayed, he was but a mortal - she would've been forced to go through the pain of loss once again had she allowed herself to take the risk.

Both Yumigami and Kabegami had been disappointed about her escape, particularly the former, who had noticed Amaterasu and her partner dancing that night. Tsukuyomi, on the other hand, believed she had made a good decision. Clearly, he was worried that she would return to the state she had been in after losing Waka, possibly even worse, were she to lose someone else.

The fact that her brother agreed with her bothered her a bit. It was rare for the two to agree, considering their opposite personalities - Amaterasu happy and carefree, Tsukuyomi serious and quiet. It had been the same with her other brother, Susanoo, back when he had still lived on the Plain, her love of all living things often coming to odds with the storm god's angry and destructive nature.

Even in slumber, she bristled in anger at the thought of Susanoo. He had been banished from the Celestial Plain many centuries ago, even before she had first travelled to Nippon, their father Izanagi having grown weary of the damage Susanoo's violent nature would often cause. The final straw had been when the god of storms had killed Uke Mochi, one of the lesser gods, all over the method she had chosen to prepare food. After that incident, the great god had banished him from the heavens, a punishment her brother had begrudgingly accepted. Hardly any of the gods had ever spoken to him again after that, herself included.

At the thought of her banished brother, the sun goddess's dreams shifted as if in response. Amaterasu suddenly found herself back in the city below, watching the panic of the humans around her as the biggest storm she had ever seen raged above. Smaller structures started to collapse under the force of the raging winds, and even the sturdiest of the city's buildings started to creak from pressure between the force of the gale and the lightning constantly striking from above.

Amid the crowd of terrified citizens running for any measure of safety, she noticed a decently-sized apartment building as it collapsed in on itself, the once-tall building quickly becoming a pile of rubble. As the floors above toppled, she saw a number of the building's former tenants, running out the doors, trying desperately to escape the destruction right behind them.

Towards the back of them was a young man with long, golden hair. Amaterasu almost jumped as she recognized the youth she had ran away from earlier that night. She tried to move, to shift to her wolf form and pull him out of the structure that was collapsing above him, but her body was like lead, her dream refusing to allow her to move. She could merely watch in horror as his form disappeared from her vision, crushed by the remnants of what had once been his home.

She jumped up with a start, a process she had become painfully familiar with over the past 500 years, although the nightmare this time was different from the one that normally plagued her. She tried to slow down her panicked breathing.

"Calm down," she thought, "It's only a dream. You've dealt with this before."

Suddenly, she heard roar of thunder off in the distance. For a second, she thought it might have been Gekigami, but as it's sound rang out again and again, she began to doubt it was the lightning god's doing.

Getting out of bed, she walked over to the open balcony, a sinking feeling in her stomach. The sun goddess looked down at the mortal world below and immediately noticed the massive, swirling cloud over the city she had been in mere hours ago. As she looked at Susanoo's storm cloud, she knew what she had seen was no dream.

Amaterasu grabbed her Divine Instruments. Though she had not been in true combat since Florence 500 years ago, the weapons still felt familiar in her hands as she equipped herself. Quickly, she ran downstairs and out of the palace, heading straight towards the edge of the Celestial Plain - the fastest way down to the world below. She was vaguely aware of Tsukuyomi and Yumigami, who had until just moments ago still been discussing the events they had experienced earlier that night, turning to follow her as they realized what had caused her panic.

A part of her seemed to know where the place she had seen in her dream was in the large city, and as she jumped off the edge of the divine realm, she angled herself towards that location, praying that the vision she had seen had not yet come to pass. Resolve washed over her. Susanoo would not take that mortal from her, not if there was anything she could do about it.

She landed on the ground first, using her divine powers to quickly slow her fall, exiting into a graceful roll, immediately drawing her trusty Solar Flare. She scanned the area as the two night gods landed behind her in a similar fashion, looking for the building she had seen moments earlier, as well as for any enemies who might be lurking about.

Amaterasu let out a small sigh of relief as she saw the apartment building from her dreams, still intact. She started to move towards the structure, but before she had the chance, a loud, unnatural shriek drew her attention.

Her combat instincts took over, quickly turning and raising her reflector as a charging imp swiped at her. The flaming shield easily deflected the blow from the relatively weak creature. She spun around, moving behind her attacker, using her momentum to slam her weapon in the back of the imp's head. In her other hand, she summoned her Celestial Brush, quickly sketching a straight line. The dark creature howled in pain as the Power Slash hit it, destroying it in a cloud of dark energy.

As the first attacker fell, its howl was answered by a chorus of imps, coming out of nowhere towards the three gods. Entering a combat stance, Amaterasu sheathed her brush, shifting Solar Flare to her left hand as she drew Thunder Edge with her right. Beside her, Tsukuyomi drew his broadsword, taking a defensive stance as the imps circled around them. A few of the creatures were brave enough to charge at the lunar deity, a move which quickly proved to be a mistake as he slashed forward with impossible speed, the god's strength cleaving the imps in two.

Amaterasu, meanwhile, did not wait for the imps to come to her, charging towards the crowd of demons. Even though her combat skills were slightly rusty from centuries of rest, they were more than enough to take on a handful of lowly imps, the creatures unable to manage so much as a scratch on the goddess as her blade of deadly electricity made short work of the beasts.

Another group of imps charged at Yumigami, believing the seemingly unarmed maiden to be the easiest target of the three. The goddess of the stars gave the charging creatures a sly smirk as she pulled a small, folded fan from her side. The first imp in the pack lunged at her, snickering at the small device she held. Its laugh was quickly stopped as the flute it was using as a weapon was stopped mid-swing, blocked by the closed fan the goddess wielded.

Howling in rage, the imp continued its assault, trying repeatedly to hit the agile girl, but each time, its blows were easily blocked by the goddess, her fan actually being made of a lightweight but sturdy metal that could easily deflect the force of the creature's blows.

Yumigami gave the imp another playful grin as she sidestepped its next attack. Deciding she had toyed with the thing long enough, she flicked the fan open, a hidden latch locking it in place. Gracefully, almost as if dancing, she twirled around the demon, the metal fan moving along with her in a long arc. Suddenly, she stopped her spin, aiming an impossibly quick swipe towards the creature's neck. The metal fan was deceptively sharp, easily dispatching the creature.

With another smile, she flicked the fan closed, grabbing a second fan with her free hand as she turned to face the rest of the group that had momentarily stopped their attack, realizing their target was not as harmless as she appeared.

Although the horde of imps were numerous, they were no match for the three gods that faced against them, who quickly dispatched the threat. The immediate danger gone, the divine beings looked at each other for a moment.

"Our brother always traveled alone," Tsukuyomi said, surprised at the sight of the creatures they had just taken care of. There had been no sighting of imps on the mortal world since Yami's attack on Italy centuries ago.

Amaterasu nodded, the sight of the imps having also startled her a bit. "Susanoo would never be working with imps," she said, voicing the concern her other brother had hinted at. "Something's not right."

Panicked screams returned them to the task at hand. Remembering the vision that had led her here, the sun goddess quickly looked back towards the apartment building. The scene before her was far too familiar - the building was rapidly crumbling, it's terrified denizens fleeing outside towards what safety they could find. And near the rear of the crowd attempting to escape, just like she had seen, was Yuro.

She glanced back at the two gods of the night. "Get to the center of the storm," she said, "See if you can get Susanoo to stop this madness."

Her brother nodded, there being no time to argue as he and Yumigami shifted to their animal forms, taking off towards the eye of the storm. As they ran off, the sun goddess looked back to the building, shifting to her wolf form, running towards it as fast as she could, hoping that she could grab the golden-haired youth and get away in time.

But their battle with the imps had delayed them long enough, and as she sprinted towards the falling building, she watched as Yuro disappeared into the growing pile of rubble. She gave a pained howl as he vanished from her sight, refusing to believe that she had failed to save him.

She turned back to her true form as she reached the pile of rubble, quickly tossing aside bits of the broken building as she tried to find him amid the ruined structure. After some time of searching, she managed to locate his motionless form, lying underneath a piece of what had been a wall that had taken quite a bit of strength (and some help from her Celestial Brush) to move aside.

Panicked, she crouched next to him, searching for any signs of life, and sighed a breath of relief when she managed to find a pulse. The bit of wall that had landed on top of him had fallen on top of another piece of rubble, high enough that it had taken the stress of the impact off of the youth. As it was, he was alive, just unconscious and likely with a few broken bones.

With a quick stroke from her brush, she opened a portal back up to the Celestial Plain. Yomigami waited for her on the other side, sensing her distress even from the divine realm above. The sun goddess picked up the motionless youth, bringing him over to the god of restoration.

"Bring him somewhere safe," she whispered. The dragon nodded as he grabbed Yuro, bringing him back towards the portal to safety, the sun goddess closing the portal behind them. With Susanoo's storm above, and the imps scattered about, she couldn't risk leaving the mortal here. Yomigami would take good care of him, his powers of restoration making him the healer amongst the gods.

That task out of the way, Amaterasu looked over towards the center of the storm, which seemed to have gathered in intensity. Multiple flashes of lightning came from that direction, which the sun goddess assumed was an indication her companions had engaged the god of storms in battle.

Shifting to her wolf form, the goddess charged towards them. There were some things Susanoo needed to answer for.

* * *

So I want to take a second to talk about how much I like Yumigami's weapons. They're basically tessen, a type of Japanese war fan that was often used by samurai when they traveled to places where weapons were prohibited. Normally, they would just be a metal club in the shape of a closed fan. I redesigned Yumi's a bit so that they could be opened as well, allowing it to be used as a small club or to deflect attacks when closed and as a deadly blade when open. Is that physically possible? Well, she's a goddess, so…

Mythology notes:

Susanoo (yes, it's spelled with two O's; no, he's not the drunken warrior from the game) is Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi's brother. Like them, he was born when Izanagi cleaned his face after his encounter with his deceased wife (Izanami) in the afterlife. In Shinto mythology, he is considered the god of the sea as well as the god of storms. In every interpretation of the myths that I've seen, he's shown to be almost constantly at odds with Amaterasu. One of the oldest myths depicting him tells of a contest between the two of them, where they each used a divine item from the other to birth gods and goddesses. Both claimed victory at the end and Susanoo ended up on a rampage, destroying Amaterasu's rice fields, killing one of her attendants, and throwing a flayed pony (which was one of her sacred animals) at her loom. Following this, Amaterasu, furious and in grief, hid in a cave for days, causing the sun to vanish. Although she was eventually drawn back out, Susanoo was banished from heaven as a result of his outburst. Some adaptations of Shinto mythology also have Susanoo killing the goddess of food, Uke Mochi (as opposed to Tsukuyomi which seems to be the more common interpretation). For the sake of my Okami writings I use the former interpretation.

Thank you all for your continued support, and as always, constructive feedback is appreciated!


	5. Eye of the Storm

The god of storms watched as the city known as Kyoto crumbled.

Normally, the humans' technology would have warned them of the smaller typhoons he would send their way every now and again from his home deep in the oceans, but not even their machines could possibly anticipate the storm unleashed when he turned his full fury upon their puny world. Without any way to prepare for the sudden storm, the city was left in a state of full-on panic, its destruction all but assured.

Already, most of the once-proud city lay in ruins, aside from the few square kilometres around the area Susanoo was currently watching from, the area directly below the storm's eye. As he looked over the destruction his storm had caused, the god laughed a bit. Next to him, the opposition the Celestial Plain had sent laid unconscious, Tsukuyomi and Yumigami having been unable to take on Susanoo and the imps under his control.

He looked at the motionless gods of the night and chuckled again. They had managed to destroy most of the imp battalion that had traveled with him, and even gave him a run for his money before he had finally managed to subdue the pair. In older days, back when he had still been allowed on the Celestial Plain, the result of that fight would have been much different, both Susanoo and Tsukuyomi being about equivalent in skill in those days. But many things had changed in the long years since.

Only a decade ago, a mysterious figure had offered a partnership to Susanoo - power beyond what he could imagine, in return for assistance in slaying the goddess of the sun. Considering the storm god's disdain for his sister and the two's long-standing rivalry, it had been a win-win for him. With his newfound strength, the lunar pair hadn't stood a chance. Amaterasu now was likely the only one of the gods with the strength to take him on, and if the stories he heard were true, she had been locked away in her chamber for centuries now, and by the time she recovered and took action against him and his new master, it would be far too late for the wolf-goddess.

The storm god looked back at the small area of the city that had been spared by his presence. In ancient times, back when the place was still known as Sei'an City, it had been the area where the city's elite resided. Most of the buildings from that time were long gone, victims of time, war, and the advancement of human society. Only the tall pagoda he stood near, once the palace of the city's queen, still stood intact.

He looked at that ancient building for a moment. Clearly, some manner of divine intervention had kept the place pristine over the years, compared the neglect the rest of the buildings it had once stood aside had been subjected to over the years. Considering the tales of the late Himiko's faith, and his sister's experiences with the former queen, it was certainly likely.

A slight grin spread on his face. If the protection this building enjoyed was indeed his sister's work, he was going to enjoy tearing it down immensely. As the god of storms gathered his powers, preparing to obliterate the tower with a bolt of lightning, part of him wished the aforementioned goddess could have been present to witness her former friend's home as it crumbled to the ground.

Coincidentally, that thought seemed to occur just as his concentration was broken as he leapt backwards, away from the rosary beads that struck where he had been a moment before. The sun goddess gave a battle cry as she pulled her Tundra Beads back towards her, entering into a quick spin as she aimed a horizontal strike towards her brother.

Susanoo had just enough time to roll backwards, underneath Amaterasu's attack. "My dear sister," he said after getting back to his feet, "It's been far too long." The god reached behind his back as he spoke, grabbing the metal staff he carried. Bringing the weapon to his side, he triggered a latch in the staff's handle, causing it to extend and reveal the long, deadly-sharp spearblade of a yari.

The goddess gave him a look of disdain as she returned the rosary to her side. "Hardly long enough," she retorted, drawing Thunder Edge from its sheath on her back. Not wasting any more time, Amaterasu charged at him, aiming a swipe from the electricity-infused sword at her opponent's chest.

The god of storms leapt back as his sister attacked, trying to keep her at a distance to use the advantage of his spear's longer range. Giving his weapon a quick twirl, he jabbed towards her exposed left side. Amaterasu quickly drew Solar Flare with her left hand, leaning back a bit from the incoming attack, and swung her reflector upward, deflecting his thrust off to the side and giving her an opening to close in.

Using her reflector to keep the business end of her opponent's yari away from her, she began a series of quick blows with her sword, knowing that her brother's spear was far less useful at close-range against her faster blade. Backing up from her assault, Susanoo spun his polearm, pulling it off the goddesses shield as he used the metal shaft of the weapon to deflect the flurry of attacks coming at him.

Feinting a low strike with her blade, the goddess used her now-free shield to land a hit across her brother's face, knocking him back a fair distance. The god of storms landed into a backwards roll, landing on his feet despite the blow he had just taken. Now in a more advantageous position with distance between the two, he launched a series of jabs and cuts towards her, forcing the sun goddess to go on the defensive. As she blocked one of his attacks with her reflector, he suddenly closed in, using the momentum of the blocked strike to spin the polearm around and hit the side of his sister's arm with the other end of his weapon, knocking her shield away.

Amaterasu quickly recovered, knowing she now had the advantage in the closer quarters, and went on the offensive, using her now-free hand to grab his spear and force it aside as she aimed a stab towards his chest, thinking that her brother's attempt to disarm her had led to a fatal mistake.

Her adversary gave a slight smirk despite his seeming disadvantage. As the sun goddess grabbed the metal shaft of his weapon, he called up to the storm above, summoning a lighting bolt that shot down towards his spear. As it was about to strike, the god of storms quickly released his grasp on the polearm, stepping back as electricity coursed through the metal weapon and into the goddesses body.

Amaterasu screamed out as the dangerously-high current passed through her, dropping her sword and the spear as she collapsed to the ground in pain, momentarily in shock. Had she not been a goddess, the bolt likely would have killed her.

Susanoo smirked again as he drew a short katana from its sheath on his belt, stepping towards his dazed sister as she shook her head, trying to regain her bearings and get back on her feet. Raising the blade, he aimed a strike towards the defenseless goddess's neck.

Before he could strike the fatal blow, Susanoo heard the sound of a sword being drawn and quickly redirected his own blade just in time to block an unbelievably-fast sword strike. The god of storms turned towards the new combatant, getting into a defensive stance.

Across from him, Tsukuyomi raised his long katana in challenge, the god of the moon having come to while the god of storms had been dueling with their sister. Knowing his shorter sword put him at a disadvantage, Susanoo slowly began to circle around his brother, back towards where his spear rested on the ground.

The lunar deity knew what his brother was attempting to do, and wasted no time in going on the offensive, using his greater range to drive the storm god back. For a few moments, the two were at a standstill, Susanoo able to parry each of Tsukuyomi's attacks as the latter's blade danced in a rain of blows.

Finally, the god of storms saw an opening, rolling to the side underneath a horizontal slice from his brother. As he got to his feet, he summoned another bolt of lightning, forcing the moon god to leap back and buying Susanoo enough time to reach and grab his primary weapon. Sheathing his short sword, the storm god gave a quick flourish with his spear, taking a combat stance as he waited for his brother to make a move.

Before that could happen, however, he heard a menacing roar, and barely had time to leap out of the way as a white wolf struck where he had just been, the sun goddess having managed to come back to her senses and return to the fight. Amaterasu growled as the signs of her divinity appeared, her crimson markings showing on her body and Solar Flare glowing brightly on her back.

With another roar, she charged at him, and Susanoo quickly found himself on the defensive, his spear a blur as he blocked to the best of his ability, the goddess rapidly striking at him with her fangs, reflector, and claws. After some time, she backed off as Tsukuyomi charged in, immediately continuing the onslaught as he repeatedly slashed towards his brother.

The god of storms found himself constantly backing up, not having a moment to go on the offensive between his sibling's attacks, one always coming in to continue their assault as the other backed off to catch their breath.

Susanoo's mind raced, trying to find some way to turn the tide against his attackers, but before a solution could present himself, he heard movement to his side, and sidestepped as best he could as a third assailant struck towards him. With his attention mainly focused on blocking his siblings' attacks, however, he was unable to dodge as well as he'd like, and the storm god grimaced as pain shot up from his right side, having been unable to completely avoid the incoming attack.

The third attacker was Yumigami, now awake as well, both her fan-blades open and ready for action as she took up a combat stance, joining in with Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi's attack.

The god of storms knew he was fighting a losing battle. Although the two deities of the night had not been able to stand up against him on their own, alongside Amaterasu, they became a much bigger threat. Even with his newly gifted powers, Susanoo hardly stood a chance against the three divine beings.

As the gods attempted to resume their onslaught, their opponent summoned a bolt of lightning towards the center of the four combatants, forcing all of them to leap backwards and putting some distance between him and his opponents. Amaterasu shifted back to her human form, drawing her Tundra Beads and striking towards her opponent before he could get away, but Susanoo was quicker. Grasping the cut on his side in pain, he summoned another bolt of lightning, this one striking directly on top of him and causing a blinding flash.

As the light faded back to normal levels, the storm god was nowhere to be seen, having taken the opportunity to retreat from the odds arrayed against him. Without the presence of its master to sustain it, the unnatural storm above quickly dissipated as well, leaving the night sky calm and quiet as it had been just hours earlier.

The sun goddess grumbled a bit in frustration, annoyed that their opponent had managed to slip away just as they had gotten the upper hand. As the three divine beings sheathed their weapons, she looked over the destruction her brother had wrought. Kyoto was in ruins, Himiko's old palace the only building left that was completely intact.

Amaterasu looked back at the ancient building with a pang of sadness, remembering Himiko and the rest of the mortal companions she had once known, all long gone now. She wished she had managed to take down her brother who had tried destroying the queen's former home and resting place, but at least they had gotten out mostly unscathed. Were it not for her brother's timely intervention, she likely would not have survived the encounter. As it was, though, all three of them would get out alive, and Yuro had looked like he would survive as well.

The thought of the youth brought the goddess back to reality. There would be time to help rebuild the city later, but for now, it had been a long night. Best to return to the Celestial Plain, check up on her human friend, and get some well-deserved rest.

The goddess drew her brush, quickly drawing a door into existence that opened to reveal a portal to the divine realm above. She looked over at the two gods of the night next to her.

"We'll figure out how to deal with Susanoo tomorrow," she said, "But for now, I need a long nap."

As the three gods approached the portal back home, Amaterasu looked back at the old palace and the ruins surrounding it. Again grabbing her brush, she quickly drew a circle off in the horizon, and the first crack of dawn broke over the devastating city, a ray of hope for the people that remained. She looked over at her handiwork for a moment, smiling, then turned and followed her companions into the portal.

Elsewhere, deep into the waters of the Pacific, Susanoo stood in the halls of his palace, the wound on his side bandaged as he also attempted to recover from the recent encounter.

Across the hall, a mysterious figure in jet-black armor watched the storm god with disapproval.

"You had an opportunity to slay that cursed sun goddess," the figure said, his voice dark in a manner that would send chills down anyone's spine, "Yet you failed, Susanoo."

"My brother intervened," the god of storms quickly responded. Even he was unnerved by the dark aura the armored man radiated. "Had Tsukuyomi not attacked-"

The dark figure cut him off mid-sentence. "Had you killed Tsukuyomi and his rabbit companion after you first fought them, Amaterasu would be dead right now." The man took a few steps towards the storm god, looking down at him. "We had a deal, Susanoo," he continued, "If I see you hesitate again, that will be the end of our partnership."

The god of storms gulped nervously, knowing that the aforementioned "end" would not be amicable. After a few moments, he regained the courage to speak. "What now? The gods are now aware that I am an enemy. They will prepare."

The dark figure turned around, beginning the pace the room. "Yes, they shall. But that will take time," he said, in thought.

"Not much time," Susanoo replied, "Kabegami will have walls up around their settlements in a few days time."

Had the figure not been wearing a helmet, the god of storms was sure he would've seen a malicious smile in response.

"Then we shall strike at them first."

* * *

Bit of an early chapter for you guys! I've had an unusual amount of free time the past week thanks to the holiday break, which has led to more time spent writing whenever I get bored and a fair bit of progress on this story in general. As such, you might see updates coming a bit more often for the next couple chapters. I'm guessing nobody'll have a problem with that.

Pretty much all action in this chapter, and it's a tad bit shorter than the past couple chapters, but this was the most natural place to break at.

I actually very nearly forgot that Tsukuyomi and Yumigami had gone off to engage Susanoo before Amaterasu got there in the previous chapter when I was first writing this, and had to redo the intro for it to make sense. In hindsight I probably could have expanded a bit more on the encounter before Amaterasu got there, but I kind of wanted the Amaterasu/Susanoo rivalry to be the main focus of this chapter, considering that there are a number of myths based upon the two butting heads.

The yari that Susanoo wields is a traditional Japanese spear, most commonly made with a long steel blade as the spear head. Some yari have been seen with blades up to three feet long in length, though the average length of the blade tip is quite a bit shorter (generally about one foot). The sharpness of the spearhead allows for slashing attacks to be used with the weapon as opposed to just stabbing attacks. The short katana that the storm god uses as his secondary weapon is a wakizashi, a one to two foot katana often wielded by samurai as their backup sword and for close-quarters combat.

Mythology Notes:  


Concerning Susanoo, I've mentioned this before when Tsukuyomi was first introduced, but in the continuity all my Okami writings take place in, I'm basing things off of some of the later interpretations of Shinto mythology, which have Susanoo killing the goddess of food, Uke Mochi, instead of Tsukuyomi. The former interpretation is certainly the less common of the two, but it allows for Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi to get along well, which is an interesting relationship to explore, and leads to more dislike between her and Susanoo, which is also an interesting dynamic to explore.

Once again, thank you all for your continued support, it really does mean a lot and I'm glad you all like my rendition of the Okami universe as much as I do. Keep the reviews and constructive criticism coming!


	6. Memories

Yuro's head spun.

The space around him seemed to glow with a white light, nothing really visible in the surreal place he found himself in. From what he could see, he seemed to be standing in some sort of field, the sweet scent of cherry blossoms faint in the air, the whole world seemingly still in tranquility.

To his surprise, he found himself unable to move, and noticed he couldn't even see himself. Almost certain he was in some sort of dream, the youth briefly wondered if he was actually there or was simply watching some sort of vision from afar.

He had little time to dwell on the question as something started to come into focus in the distance. The bright light seemed to dim a bit, allowing him to see the scene a bit more clearly. He could now notice the tall form of a pagoda off on the horizon, far taller than any he had ever seen in his homeland. Despite not remembering seeing it before, he knew that he had been in this place once before. It was far too familiar.

At the thought of things that looked familiar, he noticed the form of a majestic white wolf, crimson markings gleaming under the light above, the animal's form seeing to radiate the power of the sun itself.

He knew this wolf. Just as he was sure he knew that girl from the previous night, and how he knew he had seen this mysterious building in the distance once before. Yuro knew there must have been some reason for the feeling of familiarity. Perhaps some faint memories of a past life, haunting him with glimpses and pieces of what once had been, but always remaining distant enough to elude his grasp.

He looked back at the figure before it, and saw not the wolf that had been there moments before but the white-haired girl he had previously met. Quickly, he noticed that she looked very different, with crimson markings similar to the ones on the wolf lining her body, and even more noticeably, wolf ears and a tail standing out among her otherwise human features.

The girl - Ammy, he remembered, looked at him, giving him a sweet smile that seemed to brighten the sky itself. The world seemed to stand still for a moment, the youth transfixed by the radiant figure in front of him.

Then, as soon as the smile on her face had appeared, it vanished, the girl's attention taken by something off to the side. As if in response, the light above faded, an ominous darkness quickly spreading over the peaceful field. The girl took a step backward, away from the approaching shadows, as she reached behind her and drew a golden sword, it's edge dancing with electricity. With her other hand, she grabbed a flaming shield, readying into a combat stance as the shadow covered the world, and the youth swore he saw what looked like fear in her eyes.

Suddenly, the scene shifted, the figure in front of him disappearing as what had been a beautiful field turned into a lifeless plain of ash and flame. In the distance, he saw the pagoda being consumed by fire, screams of fear and pain coming from that direction.

Looking around, Yuro again saw Ammy, lying motionless on the ground, the sword and mirror she had held moments before scattered beside her. This time, he noticed that the lupine features he had seen moments earlier were no longer present. Her body was still covered with crimson markings, but he knew that these were not the divine markings she wore earlier, but rather that of blood, clearly having been grievously injured in some sort of battle.

On its own accord, he felt his body walk towards the fallen girl, stopping to kneel at her side. She wasn't breathing, and he felt himself grab her hand, cold as ice. A sense of grief and panic washed over him as he looked back over her lifeless form, only to be interrupted by a distant rumble.

Looking at the source of the sound, Yuro saw the smoke cloud of an explosion as flames began to wash over what looked to be some sort of village in the distance. As the smoke cleared, he could faintly make out a shadowy form amid the raging fire, an ominous figure in dark armor that filled him with fear and dread.

The armored figure turned, looking directly at him, and suddenly, the youth's mind coursed with pain as the dark form's mental shout reverberated through him.

_TIMEWALKER._

Gasping, Yuro woke, snapping his eyes open and attempting to leap. That had been a mistake, his attempts at motion being met with a throbbing pain as his sore muscles refused to respond to his request. Grimacing, he let himself fall back down onto the bed he was now resting on.

A bit disoriented, the youth looked around at his surroundings. The room he was in was fairly small, only large enough for the bed he sat on and a couple tables, holding a number of what looked to be various medicinal herbs. On the side of the bed, he saw Ammy sitting next to him, looking at him with a mix of concern and relief. He immediately noticed the wolf ears and tail she now had, just like how she had looked in the dream he had just experienced.

Despite the pain throughout his body, he managed to find the strength to speak. "Where am I?"

She rested a hand on his shoulder, giving him a small smile. "Don't worry," she said, looking at him with a gentle kindness, "You're safe now."

Yuro shivered as her words echoed through him, triggering some long-lost memory.

Suddenly, he was outside that giant pagoda again, his body bruised and sore as he crawled free of a strange mechanical vessel. Glimpses of a horrible eight-headed beast popped into his head, of running away from the demon along with a blond-haired girl as it ravaged some alien city, devouring any unfortunate to stand in its path.

He vaguely remembered falling to the ground as he climbed out of the damaged vessel, of the crowd of odd angel-like beings staring at him in awe, and saw a familiar-looking girl with white hair and wolf ears, albeit much younger - she couldn't have been more than five or six years old. Looking at him with curiosity and some concern, she whispered the same words he had heard her older self say just moments earlier.

The scene quickly faded to black, and his vision returned as he looked around the room he had been resting in moments before, although he had a feeling something was different this time around. A quick look around confirmed this notion, as he noticed Ammy was no longer anywhere to be seen in the room.

His thoughts were distracted by the sound of the aforementioned girl's voice, although it sounded much younger.

"Father, will he be alright?"

A second voice responded, this one much deeper, that of a middle-aged man.

"Yomigami does his work well, my dear Amaterasu. His wounds will heal."

Amaterasu. The youth shivered a bit as he recognized that name, the name of the sun goddess in old Shinto legends. Could the girl he had just met the night before be one and the same? As unlikely as it sounded, after the visions he had seen, and the unnatural storm that had come down the night they had met, Yuro had a feeling the name was more than pure coincidence.

His thoughts were interrupted as the aforementioned goddess shook him in the present time, concerned by the sudden episode that he had fallen into. She looked at him, a bit shocked, having recognized the distant look in his eyes as the same one Waka would have whenever he had one of his prophecies.

As Yuro snapped back into reality, he looked back at the white-haired maiden. "Amaterasu," he whispered softly, just loud enough for her to hear.

The sun goddess did a double take at the sound of her real name, something she hadn't expected the youth to know.

"How do you know my name?" she finally said, her face a mix of surprise and confusion.

The golden-haired youth looked back at her. "I remembered," he responded, panting a bit, the vision he had received having taken much of the little energy he had in his current condition, "I saw you watching me after climbing out of some metal ship, remembered hearing you talk with your father as I rested in this same room." He paused a bit, gathering himself as he continued, "I don't know when that happened, or why it seems so distant in my mind. But I remembered it."

Amaterasu felt herself feeling that same sense of hope she had felt when she first saw the youth as she listened to him describe the day she had met Waka almost two-thousand years ago. For some reason, Yuro seemed to have Waka's memories. Briefly, she wondered what force of nature had caused that. Was he her beloved, reborn after half a millennium, so that they might be together once again? Or was he some descendant of Waka's, somehow containing his ancestor's memories, lying repressed until his meeting her had awoken them?

Even for a goddess, the phenomena was simply too mysterious to comprehend. Unable to find any words, she simply leaned back, resting her head next to him.

For a few moments, they stayed like that, neither really understanding the revelation the youth had just had.

The sun goddess finally broke the silence. "Do you remember anything else?"

Yuro paused in concentration, trying to call forth another memory, to remember anything else about the girl lying next to him, but even the vision he had just had seemed distant to him, and once again those mysterious memories eluded him.

After a few more moments of concentration, all futile, he looked back at her, shaking his head softly.

Before either of them could speak again, the door burst open, revealing the form of Tsukuyomi, the god of the moon clearly distressed. Quickly, Amaterasu sat back up, looking over at her brother. Something had made him very worried - and very angry.

The lunar god looked at the two with some surprise, clearly not very happy about how close his sister had been with the human youth moments earlier. However, there were far more pressing matters at hand. Looking back towards the sun goddess, Tsukuyomi threw her the object that had caused him to enter such a state.

Catching it, Amaterasu opened her hand to look at it, and felt a chill run down her spine. It was a piece of a scroll, but the material it was made of was certainly nothing that could be found naturally, either on the Celestial Plain or on the mortal world below. It felt unnatural, and the goddess could feel the evil radiating from the scrap of fabric.

There was no doubt - the object she held in her hand was a piece of a Demon Scroll.

She looked back at Tsukuyomi. "No demon has set foot on the Plain since Orochi," she said, worry in her eyes.

"That's changed," her brother responded, "Yumigami and I ran into a small pack of imps towards the edge. A scouting party."

She didn't need him to explain the implication, but he did anyway.

"Whoever controls these creations is planning an attack. And it's coming soon."

* * *

Lots of people have been speculating on Yuro as of late, so I figured I'd give some development on his character. As well as open up another pile of questions, because it wouldn't be fun if you all knew everything :P

This is also the first chapter to pull in references from some of my other stories (the scene with Amaterasu first meeting Waka is a reference to _Blood Moon_). I'll always try to keep each of my works self-sufficient - that is, written in such a way that you don't necessarily need to read any of the other stuff I put out to understand what's going on, but if you want added context, you can always read some of the shorter stuff I put out. As I've mentioned in the past, everything I write that's Okami-related is all in the same continuity unless otherwise mentioned, so I do use many of the one-shots and other shorter stories I write as a place to explore areas of the lore that wouldn't fit into a larger story.

Other than that, lots more foreshadowing, and a bit more of development in Ammy and Yuro's relationship.

As always, thanks for all the continued support, and constructive criticism is always appreciated!


	7. Eclipse

Amatearasu woke to hear only silence.

On any normal day, the rise of dawn would be greeted by the chirping of birds, by the sounds of merriment as the denizens of the Celestial Plain went about their lives. But not today. The lesser gods, as well as what remained of the Celestials, had all barricaded themselves in their homes as the Brush Gods prepared the settlement's defenses. Even the smallest creatures of the forest had retreated to their homes in the trees and earth, sensing the coming storm.

The goddess looked over the eerily quiet world as she exited the palace and walked through the streets of the Celestials' village. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see sturdy walls slowly rising out of the ground as Kabegami used her powers to prepare the settlement for the coming attack. Although many might find the feline's power over walls to be a useless ability, it had actually proven over the centuries to be incredibly useful for preparing defenses in times like these.

Quietly, the sun goddess continued through the village and out into the forest beyond, soon arriving at a small spring hidden deep within the woods. The same place she and Waka had shared their first dance nearly two thousand years ago. The peaceful spot was a personal favorite of hers, not only due to the memories it brought back, but because of how difficult it was to find. It was a great place for her to hide from the duties her divinity brought and reflect on the world.

She stopped at the edge of the spring, looking down at the reflection of herself shining on the surface of the water. The goddess felt a pang of sadness as she noticed the Divine Instruments on her reflection's body, all prominently displayed and within easy reach for when they were needed. Normally, she wouldn't arm herself when visiting this place, but, again, today was different.

The goddess looked back at the peaceful woods around her, lost in thought. When the demon Orochi had attacked her home so many years ago, the land had been left ruined, its forests reduced to ash and the homes of the Celestials collapsed into rubble. It had taken her and Waka several years to fully restore the land to its former glory after that attack. But this time, it wasn't some mere demon coming to wreak havoc. Whoever led these dark creatures clearly had enough power to bring Susanoo under his sway, and even though Amaterasu knew her brother didn't need much encouragement to turn against her, anything that could manipulate and control a major deity clearly had power beyond comprehension.

The sun goddess's thoughts were interrupted as she heard footsteps behind her, turning to see the face of Yuro. He gave her a small smile as she noticed him, walking next to her. The youth was clearly still in some pain from the previous night's events. This didn't surprise Amaterasu - although Yomigami did his work well, even the god of restoration couldn't get rid of the lingering bruises and soreness the youth now felt.

She shook her head at him as he approached. "You should still be in bed," she said, almost teasingly, "Yomigami gave strict orders."

Yuro rolled his eyes as he stopped next to the goddess. "I think you have more important things to worry about than me," he replied, looking at her worryingly. The human had been there when Tsukuyomi warned Amaterasu of the coming attack, and from the eerie calm that had taken over the divine world and worried looks of the other gods he had seen, he knew whatever was coming would make the supernatural storm that hit Kyoto pale in comparison.

Amaterasu looked away, back at the natural beauty around her. She too had noticed the fearful looks many of the Celestials and minor gods had as preparations for the coming assault were made. The goddess understood their fears, indeed, she shared them to an extent. She had weakened greatly during her time grieving for Waka, the lack of any type of combat or training taking a toll on her skills. Even Susanoo had nearly managed to slay her when they fought in the streets of Kyoto, a battle that normally would be much more evenly matched. How could she hope to stand against the dark power that had taken control over her brother in her current state?

Slowly, she sat on the overturned tree that laid next to the spring, the same log that she had sat on next to Waka so many times in the past, looking at the calm reflection of the water, trying not to let the fear and doubt she had overtake her. No matter how she felt about the coming storm, the other gods needed her, needed to see that the greatest of them was still willing to stand and face even the darkest shadow.

She was distracted as she felt Yuro's arm wrap around her, the youth having sat next to her, trying to comfort her the only way he could think of. The sun goddess looked back at him, trying to muster as much of a smile as she could, leaning into his embrace. For a while, they rested like that, neither wanting to ruin the moment and bring back the worries of reality.

Amaterasu's thoughts calmed a little with his presence, resting her head on his shoulder. He didn't deserve the horrors that were coming, didn't deserve to have had his life turned around and ruined by her brother and the dark powers arrayed against them. None of the humans on the plane below, the ones whom this darkness would surely turn on once they had conquered the Celestial Plain, deserved this. Humans lived such short lives as it was, the least they could get was for those lives to be peaceful.

Slowly, the sun goddess's doubts began to be replaced with a quiet resolve as she found the mental strength she once had. It was her duty to protect this world, and no matter the powers that threatened her, she would not allow the darkness to destroy the lives in her care. So long as she still stood, the sun's light would keep shining, a beacon of hope for those residing below.

Elsewhere in the divine realm, the other Brush Gods waited behind Kabegami's walls, watching the dark clouds gathering in the distance. As the storm slowly approached, they saw the sun flare in response, as if in challenge, and knew the great sun goddess was prepared for whatever was to come.

Chibiterasu was glad to see that his mother still had that fighting spirit within her, for they would need it now more than ever. Even though the child of the sun had traveled to the Plain to assist in the coming battle, knowing that his power would be needed there despite the repair work that was needed on the mortal world after Susanoo's attack, he too could sense the raw power the dark presence facing them held. They needed as much force as they could muster if there was to be any hope at victory.

A rumbling in the distance drew their attention, the dark clouds nearing the edge of the divine realm now. The sun god drew the Truth Mirror from its home on his belt, his trusty reflector ready for whatever the coming storm brought. Next to him, the other Brush Gods followed suit as the dark cloud continued its slow approach.

Suddenly, a bolt of lightning struck from the cloud, landing on a patch of grass near the edge of the Plain, immediately scarring the land it had struck black as the green that had been there vaporized from the blast of energy. As the smoke from the strike cleared, the forms of several imps came into focus. Nearby, more bolts struck, each heralding the arrival of more of the dark creatures.

The imps wasted no time in charging towards the massive walls that defended the village, not seeming to care that they were in a tactically inferior position. Gekigami smirked as the god of thunder drew his bow, firing his electric arrows down towards the incoming forces, each arrow felling several of the creatures as a blast of electricity exploded from each strike. Next to him, Bakugami threw cherry bombs down at the dark forces, the god of explosion's creations serving their purpose well as they thinned down the imp army even further. The few demons that remained after the two gods barrage were quickly taken down by Itegami, the god of ice firing down sharp icicles like arrows with deadly precision.

As the last imp fell, the gods looked out over at the battlefield, parts of it scorched black due to the previous encounter. For a few moments, the field below remained devoid of any more of the dark creatures. Then, lightning struck again, each time revealing a dark-looking gate rather than imps. As more of the dark gates rose, dark creatures began to pour out of the gates that had already been created as their attack resumed in earnest. As the true host of the demon army rapidly approached, the Brush Gods readied for another wave. The true battle was only just beginning.

Both Amaterasu and Yuro could feel the arrival of the dark power as the attack on the divine realm began. Quickly, the sun goddess rose and ran out of the forest, stopping as she reached the open field to look at the ominous clouds that were starting to cover the Celestial Plain.

Yuro followed behind her, being considerably slower due to his human nature. As the youth reached the edge of the clearing, he froze, immediately recognizing the scene before him. Amaterasu was standing in the very same field he had seen her in his vision the previous night, the same field he had seen her dead body in.

As he had seen in his vision, the sun goddess drew her sword and reflector as the shadows quickly blotted out the light above. Lightning struck revealing the silhouette of that dark-armored figure. A chill raced down the human's spine as the dark form chuckled, its laughter seeming to shake the divine realm with its sound. Slowly, the figure drew a short staff, and the youth could hear a soft click as the staff suddenly began to transform, it's metal body extending into some sort of polearm weapon, a razor-sharp blade extending out from the weapon's edge as the staff shifted into a deadly-looking glaive.

A dark voice rang out over the clearing.

_I have waited a long time for this, Amaterasu._

The goddess shivered at the sound, a mixture of terror, hatred, and anger washing over her as she realized who this voice belonged to.

_This time, there will be no prophet to save you._

Amaterasu cried out in rage as she leapt towards the armored figure, immediately launching into a whirling offensive as she repeatedly struck at her opponent with Thunder Edge. Even her adversary seemed a bit taken aback by her ferocity, immediately forced on the defensive as he backed away, using his weapon's greater range to turn away her blows.

Returning Solar Flare to its sheath, the goddess drew her brush, quickly using it to bring down multiple strikes of lightning towards her opponent. She did not know how Yami had managed to escape from the prison Waka had sacrificed himself to create, but even though she lacked the strength she once had, she would not give in to the one who had taken everything from her. This fight would not end until she had torn the dark lord to shreds, or until she no longer had the strength to raise her weapon against him.

Yami leapt out of the way of each bolt with surprising quickness. As he dodged the last one, the dark lord swung his weapon towards the ground, it's bladed edge striking the earth with inhuman force, creating a fissure directly towards the goddess that opened to fire out a wave of darkness.

Amaterasu managed to roll out of the way just in time, shifting into her wolf form as she exited the roll. Again, she charged towards her opponent, snarling viciously as she called her Tundra Beads to her side. She began another offensive, her form a blaze of white as she repeatedly struck at the dark lord at a rapid pace, using both her claws and rosary in an attempt to find some sort of gap in the dark form's armor but finding little success as Yami managed to deflect most of her strikes with the shaft of his weapon.

As her attacks started to slow, the dark lord again slammed his glaive into the ground, sending out a shockwave that threw the goddess off of him, the wolf landing painfully a distance away. Wasting no time, Yami closed in as she got up, swinging the deadly blade towards her. Seeing the attack, the goddess attempted to roll away, but she was a moment too late, the sharp edge of his glaive managing to make a shallow cut into her side.

She yelped in pain as the dark weapon cut into her, blood dripping from the wound, mixing in with the red from her divine markings. Encouraged, the dark form continued his attack, striking again and again at her as he pressed his advantaged. The goddess barely managed to call Solar Flare to her side as she turned back to her human form, pressed backwards as she used the reflector to turn away Yami's powerful strikes.

Seeing an opening, she shifted Solar Flare to her left hand, drawing Thunder Edge with her main hand and again striking at the dark lord. This time, she succeeded in finding a crack in the side of Yami's armor, her blade landing a hit on the glass-like sphere that resided in the center of the armor.

Like in her previous encounters, the bowl Yami's true form resided in was surprisingly resilient, her attack leaving no visible marks. She knew her attack had done something, however, as the dark lord hissed at her, his armor and weapon shifting as he took the spherical form she had encountered in the past, choosing to sacrifice some of his offensive ability for more defense.

The dark sphere immediately charged at her, attempting to crush her with its mass. Amaterasu leapt out of the way in a flip, narrowly avoiding the metal projectile. She grimaced a bit as she landed, the cut in her side making such acrobatics painful. Again, the sphere launched at her, and she shifted back to her wolf form, its greater speed of more use in dodging the dark lord's attacks.

As she narrowly dodged out of the way again, she leapt at the dark sphere, using her tail to draw a brush stroke mid-leap as she summoned Tachigami's power to unleash a Power Slash across Yami's form like she had in some of their previous fights.

Yami, however, was prepared for her attack, and compressed his metal form, the increased resilience that resulted enough to block the slice from her brush technique. As she got closer, the dark lord again shifted form, this time into the shape of a giant hand. Faster than she could react, the metal hand reached at her, closing around her as he caught her in a crushing grip.

Amaterasu howled in pain as she felt Yami destroying her divinity, ripping her brush techniques from her and shattering their constellations the same way he had back on the Ark of Yamato so many centuries ago. As the last constellation vanished, the metal hand threw her to the ground, the sun goddess slamming into the earth, nearly losing consciousness from the force of the impact.

As blackness crept at the edge of her vision, the wolf weakly looked back at her opponent, lacking the strength to move much more than that. Yami had shifted back into his spherical form, the metal shell opening to reveal the glass bowl that held the dark lord's true form.

Yami's voice rang out again as he charged one final attack.

_And now, the sun dies._

In the Celestial settlement, the other Brush Gods continued to fight against the dark army, the walls having long since been overwhelmed, forcing them to retreat back towards the village proper, now fighting in the courtyard before the massive pagoda that watched over the divine realm. In the center of the action was Tsukuyomi, his massive katana felling several demons with each swing as the god of the moon fought with all his strength.

A cry drew his attention, and he looked over at Yumigami, who had fallen to her knees in pain as the goddess of the night felt her divine essence being ripped from her. The moon god ran to her side, holding off the demons that attempted to close in on her in her weakened state. For a moment, he thought that she had simply been hit in combat, but as the other Brush Gods cried out in pain around them, his stomach sank as he realized what was happening.

Yumigami grabbed his free hand, clutching at it with what strength she still had left as he looked back at her. "Tsukuyomi," she whispered, trying to find enough energy to speak as her form started to fade, "I-"

She didn't have the time to finish her sentence as her constellation broke, the goddess crying out as she faded away. Around them, the other Brush Gods met similar fates, disappearing as the divine power of Amaterasu faded. Soon, only Tsukuyomi and Chibiterasu remained on the battlefield. As their power was separate from the sun goddess's, they did not require her strength to exist.

The god of the moon roared as another wave of imps charged at them, his hand triggering a switch on the side of his katana, causing the blade to extend further to an impossible length. As the demons approached, he swung at them with lightning speed, each strike sending out a shockwave as it landed, further amplifying his weapon's range.

Next to him, Chibiterasu attacked with similar ferocity, the young sun god using his Devout Beads to strike at his opponents from a distance. Although he had survived the loss of his mother's power because of his own innate power, the loss of her power had affected him much more than it had the moon god, and the child of the sun preferred to avoid close-quarters combat in his weakened state.

Tsukuyomi looked over the battlefield for a moment. There were far too many of the dark creatures, and without the other Brush Gods, he and his nephew stood no chance at winning this fight. He turned to Chibiterasu. "Gather the villagers and retreat into the forest," he yelled, "I'll fend them off and follow after you."

There was no time to argue, and even if there was, the young sun god knew that this was a losing battle, and that to stay and fight would mean the death of all those who lived on the Celestial Plain. Nodding, he ran towards the settlement, enlisting the assistance of the few Celestials that had remained outside to guard the edge of the village to gather the rest and usher them into the forests.

After some time, he found himself entering the forest himself along with the final group of Celestials. For a moment, he turned back towards the sounds of combat in the distance as Tsukuyomi held back the tide of demons. Even with the defenses around the village to help keep the dark creatures at bay, the moon god was rapidly weakening, his opponents just too numerous for one being to handle. Chibiterasu hoped that his uncle still had the strength to escape.

Either way, there was no time to waste, and nothing he could do to assist. Turning back to the huddle of frightened Celestials, he made his way deeper into the forest.

Off in the distance, Yami's gloating laugh reverberated through the clearing, seconds away from the victory he had sought for millennium. Every time before, his efforts to destroy the sun goddess had proven futile, her life always saved by some last-second intervention. But with the prophet taken care of, and her Celestial Envoy long since departed from this world, there was nobody to come to her aid now. The sun would die, and darkness would cover the world forever.

Across the clearing, Yuro looked on in horror, knowing full well what was coming but powerless to stop it. He cried out to the goddess, hoping she would somehow find the strength to move and get away from the death that was staring her in the face, but even if she had, she certainly stood no chance against the dark lord in her weakened state. Amaterasu looked back at him at the sound of his voice, barking weakly in response, her eyes filled with sorrow and regret. As he looked into her eyes, the youth wished there was some other outcome, that somehow the vision he had seen wouldn't be proven true, that there was some way, any way, out of the nightmare unfolding in front of him.

The sun goddess gave him a lonely howl, and a memory triggered. Suddenly, the youth was on the streets of fifteenth-century Florence, the aforementioned goddess lying in a similar fashion on the cobblestone roads, wounded and weakened, with the same dark sphere charging a fatal attack overhead. Looking down at himself, he saw that he too was in a similar shape, bleeding from several gashes. The youth felt himself grab a sword - _his sword_ \- and attempted to use it to help pull himself to his feet, managing to succeed after some effort.

He felt himself look back at Amaterasu, who was looking at him with panic in her eyes, knowing what was about to come, and then heard himself speak, though it was not his voice that he heard.

_Je t'aime, ma chérie._

Suddenly, he saw the reason his predecessor had gotten to his feet, the reason he had sacrificed himself despite knowing how doing so would cripple the goddess emotionally for centuries. A vision of peace, of a possibility within the future that one day, if all fell into place, his beloved would be able to live out the eternity of peace and happiness they had once hoped for. A vision that told of a legacy bigger than himself, a plan that he had a feeling had been put into motion by Waka's predecessors, and their predecessors before that.

And then he felt his past self make a series of signs with his free hand, and felt a power course through him as an array of doors revealed themselves, some leading to the past, some to other moments in the present, and many more to possibilities for the future. And then, the vision ended.

In the present, Yuro felt himself make the same series of signs with his left hand, and time seemed to slow for the youth as that same power coursed through him, albeit weaker than it had been in the vision. As if possessed, he ran towards the fallen goddess, noticing the blast of energy firing towards them as he got close, Yami having finally unleashed his final attack. Yuro leapt towards the sun goddess, wrapping his arms around her, and in his mind, opened one of the doors. As he did so, a tear in space opened beneath them, the door he had opened materializing. The two fell through, the portal closing behind them, as the blast of dark energy washed over the space where they had been just moments before.

In the moments before the door closed, Yuro could hear Yami's enraged roar as his prey eluded him once again.

On the outskirts of the Celestial settlement, Tsukuyomi fought with what little strength he had left, the moon god nearly at his limit despite his combat skill and endurance. Glancing behind him, he could see that the village was empty. Chibiterasu had managed to lead them all away in time.

Calling on what little power he had left, the lunar deity summoned forth the moon in the skies overhead, the dark clouds clearing a little bit to allow its light to shine down on the battlefield below. He brought the moonlight down, its glow bathing over him, and as it shone down on the world, it bent the light around it, effectively making it seem like the moon god had disappeared.

Knowing he couldn't hold the illusion forever, Tsukuyomi shifted to his wolf form, and darted off towards the distant forest, managing to make it into the foliage just the last of his energy waned, breaking the illusion. Quickly, the wolf continued deeper in the forest, following Chibiterasu's scent. Perhaps they had lost a lot today, but at least some of them had managed to survive,and his nephew's survival guaranteed that the sun's light wouldn't go out anytime soon, even if the worst had happened to his sister.

There were certainly dark days ahead, but they had managed to keep hope alive, and sometimes, that was all that mattered.

* * *

So this update took a bit longer than normal, but that's partly due to the fact that this chapter was one of the longest I've written and more so due to the fact that this past week was finals week. Despite taking longer than usual, however, I mostly like how it came out. Looking back, I kind of wished I had spent more time on the fight scenes with the Brush Gods so that I could showcase more of their fighting styles, but this chapter was long enough as it is. Leaves me something to explore later, I suppose.

We also saw a bit more of Tsukuyomi's abilities. Turns out his giant katana isn't just a plain old giant katana, but a giant katana that can actually become an EVEN BIGGER katana. Did I say katana enough times in that sentence?

He can also use the moonlight to bend light to camouflage himself in a manner similar to Mirana's ultimate (Dota 2 all other MOBAs, COME AT ME LOL FANBOYS).

Speaking of references, Yuro can see doors to different possibilities. Which is definitely not in any way a reference to Bioshock Infinite.

Side note: The glaive that Yami wields in this chapter is NOT a sword. A glaive, contrary to how Okami describes things, is NOT a sword, period. An actual glaive is a polearm weapon (like a spear) with a long blade on the end rather than a spearhead. For some reason the word glaive was used as a poetic word for sword (primarily by the French). It would seem that Okami chose to call the swords wielded by Ammy and Chibi as glaives in a similar manner, even though it's technically incorrect.

You might have noticed that I've never once referred to one of their swords as a glaive in any of my writings, and that's the reason why. For some reason, the misuse of the term really bugs me.

As always, thank you all for your continued support, it really does mean a lot. And of course, constructive feedback is always appreciated :)


	8. Konohana

Yami bristled with anger as he walked through the remains of the Celestial Plain's forests.

He had come close to killing the sun goddess many times - twice on the Ark of Yamato, and once again in Florence many centuries after, only each time to be thwarted at the last possible moment, usually by that accursed prophet.

This time, though, the dark lord had been certain he had her, with Waka long dead and no faith or Celestial Envoy to sustain her. Yet, somehow, a descendant of Waka had survived over the years, and inherited his powers… And somehow found the goddess in time to save her once again.

As he walked past the dead trees of the rapidly decaying forest, the dark lord wondered just how someone had managed to inherit Waka's powers. The only descendant of Waka he knew of was that wolf pup, Chibiterasu - and the powers he had inherited from his mother would certainly supersede the prophetic abilities of his father. Even if the moon prophet and Amaterasu did have other offspring he wasn't aware of, their mother's divine power would surely take priority, which meant that Waka had a child with someone other than the sun goddess at some point - an interesting development, considering how loyal he had always been to the goddess.

Ahead of him, the trees started to thin as he approached a clearing surrounding a rather ominous-looking cave, its entrance sealed by a giant boulder. As Yami approached the sealed cavern, he briefly thought back to his new adversary. The addition of Waka's descendant would certainly complicate things, and the dark lord would have loved to have the sun goddess out of his way by now, but it was of no consequence. Without her divine essence, Amaterasu posed no threat to his dark forces, and even the added power of the moon prophet wouldn't be able to stop his creator once she was freed.

At that thought, the dark-armoured figure stopped, just a few feet away from the massive boulder, and drew his weapon, the metal staff shifting into its glaive form. With a mighty swing, he brought it down towards the boulder, slamming it into the ground and shaking the divine realm as a dark shockwave fired out, cleaving the rock in two and revealing the entrance of the long-forgotten caverns hidden behind it.

In the darkness of the caverns, a strange blue light began to glow, and even the dark lord himself felt himself shiver as the sound of a woman's laugh, its tones filled with malice, echoed out of the cavern into the world beyond.

As the pale blue light grew brighter, it began to take shape, becoming the form of what had once been a beautiful maiden, her appearance long since twisted by death. As she stepped outside of the caves of the afterlife, the one who had once been known as the Mother of All Things looked at the dead world around her.

At one time, the dark, decaying scene around her would have horrified the maiden, the thousands of years she had spent in the halls of the afterlife, spent brooding in her anger and hatred, had long since changed her. She was now Izanami, maiden of death, and to her, the dead world around her was the way things should be.

She would see to it that the rest of the world soon took the same appearance.

Hidden within the mass of dead trees, a dark-furred wolf watched on in shock as the former goddess of creation rose from the spirit realm. Tsukuyomi had only heard the stories about her, considering she had died before his birth, but what he had heard disturbed him greatly. The tale of how his father, Izanagi, had attempted to save his wife from the halls of death, how he had looked on her rotting face with horror and abandoned her, running away and sealing the entrance to the afterlife to protect the world of the living from her rage. The power of that place had been so immense that, upon cleansing himself on his return to the living world, the act of Izanagi cleaning his face had birthed three gods - Amaterasu, Susanoo, and Tsukuyomi himself.

Clearly, the many years Izanami had spent in the spirit realm had done nothing to subdue her anger - if anything, they had amplified it. If she was to turn her strength against the world of the living, the moon god doubted they could hope to stand against it, considering they had only barely survived the attack of Yami's forces moments earlier.

Quietly, Tsukuyomi turned away from the scene and bolted off into the dead forest, following the scent of his nephew and the Celestials that had been traveling with him. Chibiterasu needed to be warned of this new danger… and considering the power and malice he had sensed from the maiden of death, they needed to get as far away from this place as possible.

In a different time and place, the waves of time rippled as a door opened, throwing out a golden-haired youth and the barely-conscious form of the sun goddess. Yuro gasped as they rolled onto the ground, the act of opening the gateway in time having taken most of his energy. He looked over at the white-haired girl lying next to him.

Of the two, Amaterasu was much worse for wear, having taken considerable damage from her fight with Yami and also still recovering from the loss of her divine power. Minus the bruises and the cut in her side, the goddess looked the way she had the day Yuro had first met her - in her human form, without her wolf ears or tail. Those features, along with her divine markings, had disappeared along with her powers when Yami had ripped her divinity from her.

Despite his weakened state, the youth managed to pull himself up, ripping off a shred of fabric from his clothes to bandage the wicked cut the sun goddess had taken during her battle. After a few moments, he looked over his handiwork. Certainly Yomigami would have managed better, but at least it would prevent the goddess from bleeding out.

Amaterasu tried to smile at the youth as he tended to her wounds, but could barely manage the gesture, still trying to recover from the loss of her powers. For once in her life, she was terrified. Yami had defeated her so easily, and now, she lacked any of her brush techniques, and had also lost a good portion of her strength along with her divine power. Worse yet, she had no Celestial Envoy to restore the faith of the mortal world, and without faith, she had no chance at recovering her divine essence.

If they met again in her current state, Yami would crush her easily, and without her divine power, the death he would bring her would be final. There would be no revival, no turning to stone…

At that thought, the goddess gasped as she noticed her surroundings. They were at the base of Konohana, Sakuya's tree in full bloom. But what drew her attention was the statue of a wolf that stood at the tree's base… the statue of Shiranui. Of _her_.

The youth had not just taken them away from the Celestial Plain - he had taken them back in time, possibly even unwittingly, considering how his powers seemed to make him as confused as she was.

Yuro noticed the look of shock on her face and followed her gaze to the wolf statue. He took a step towards it, looking at it quizzingly before turning back towards the goddess next to him. "It looks like you," he said, not knowing the statue's true purpose.

Amaterasu grimaced as she got up, her body flaring in pain with each movement. As she tried to step up next to him, she staggered a bit, her body weakened incredibly from the stress it had been under moments before. Yuro managed to catch her as she started to fall, wrapping an arm around her to help her stand.

After a few moments, she managed to regain her balance, looking back at her past self, encased in stone. "That's because it is me," she explained, "My wolf form, encased in stone after I was slain fighting Orochi centuries ago." Her head spun as she spoke. How long ago had they gone? It had been almost 1800 years since her adventures in Nippon, and she had perished to Orochi a century before that. Clearly, the portal Yuro had opened had brought them almost two thousand years into the past.

She turned back to the youth next to her. "How did you do that?" she asked, knowing he probably knew about as much as she did. The portal he had opened had certainly looked similar to the one Waka used half a millennium ago, and clearly it was somehow related to the strange connection Yuro seemed to have with the prophet, but even Waka had never explained the nature of the portals to her.

Yuro shook his head at her question, not knowing the answer himself. "I don't know."

Suddenly, he felt his gut drop as he got the feeling that they shouldn't be here. Quickly, he grabbed the goddess's hand, pulling her behind one of the rocks surrounding the area, hiding them from the presence he felt was coming.

Amaterasu cried out in surprise as she was dragged behind the rock, confused as to what was going on. She looked over at Yuro. "Why did you-"

Her sentence trailed off halfway as the haunting sound of a flute wafted down from above, and the sun goddess felt her heart stop for a moment in recognition. She had not heard that sound for over five hundred years, but even still, her mind knew that melody as if it had heard it yesterday.

Quietly, she peeked over the edge of the rock, and gasped in surprise as she saw a figure wearing a long, white headdress land gracefully next to the statue of her former self. Waka.

The moon prophet continued his song for a few moments longer, then put away his flute, the air seeming to become unnaturally still with the disappearance of his instrument's light tones. With his melody finished, Waka looked at the stone form of Amaterasu's past self, his face trying to hide the sadness and grief the loss of his beloved had brought him. Even though he knew she would return once her strength had recovered, that knowledge didn't make the wait for her any easier.

In that moment, Amaterasu wanted nothing more than to run to his side, to wrap her arms around him and tell him how much she had missed him over the past few centuries, even though she knew that this world's Waka would have no idea about the events that were to come. Even knowing that, however, she still attempted to reach him, quickly moving out of the cover of the rock she and Yuro were hiding behind.

Before she could make any progress, she felt a hand grab her arm and pull her back into cover as Yuro did his best to hold the goddess back.

Amaterasu struggled against his grip, glaring at the youth in anger. "Let go," she growled, quickly finding it difficult to break free in her weakened state and without her divinity.

The youth held her back as best he could, hoping his ancestor wouldn't take notice of the commotion she had caused. "Ammy," he whispered, trying to calm her down before she could slip free, "We're not supposed to be here."

The goddess started to pause as he said that, realizing his meaning. Waka currently thought that his world's Amaterasu was in front of him within the statute of Shiranui. If he saw her now, what impact would that have on the timeline? She thought back to her previous encounter with time travel. When she and Issun had used the Spirit Gate during their adventures in Nippon, they had come close to completely altering Shiranui and Nagi's encounter with Orochi. It was that same gate that had led to the death of her previous incarnation. Certainly time was one thing they didn't want to mess with.

Subdued, she slumped back a bit, again peeking out past the top of the rock at the moon prophet as he sat on the base of the statue next to her past self's stone form.

Waka looked over at the stone wolf, a mixture of sadness, grief, and guilt crossing his face. "I should have been there, ma chérie."

The prophet rested a hand on the statue's side as he continued, looking away for a moment. "I could sense the ripples in time the second you and your Poncle friend travelled into the future, but I could not abandon my troops to come to your aid." Waka thought back to that moment. He and the Tao Troopers had been called to the defense of Sei'an City as a pack of Orochi's demons attempted to break past the city's walls when he had sensed the goddess travelling back in time.

He could have still helped her, could have opened a portal to the future himself to come to her aid against Lechku and Nechku, but doing so would have led to the loss of his men, not to mention the death and destruction the demons would have wrought against the city itself had they broken through. No matter how much it pained him, he couldn't have left the denizens of Sei'an to that fate, not even for her.

The prophet paused, looking back at her frozen form. "You saved all our lives, you know," he continued, "We were losing that fight before the tremors of Orochi's death sent those imps packing." A single tear rolled down his cheek as Waka remembered the events that had followed. He had travelled to Kamiki as quickly as could, excited at the death of their longtime foe but also slightly nervous after sensing the goddess travel through time. The prophet was unable to watch over the goddess while she was in a different time, and in all the possibilities he had seen in his visions, he hadn't seen the outcome of her adventures in the future.

His spirits had sunk further the second he stepped into the village. Kamiki should have been bursting with excitement, its residents celebrating the defeat of the monster that had plagued them for so long, but the air was as silent and gloomy as it was while the village had been under Orochi's reign. His worst fears had been confirmed the second he reached the base of the sacred tree, seeing the villagers gathered around the dying wolf, the goddess's form dyed crimson from the battles she had just been in.

He had enough time to run to her side, to hold her head in his arms as he tried to comfort her, and himself, that things would be okay, that they would eventually be able to share each other's embrace once again. Even though she was unable to communicate normally in her lupine form, the prophet was able to sense the aura of sadness and reassurance coming from her form as she attempted to comfort her beloved as best she could.

From her hiding place, Amaterasu quickly looked away from the prophet as he relived that painful memory. She remembered those moments after Orochi's defeat as well, how distressed he had been upon seeing her dying form, but had never realized just how much losing her had affected him over the hundred years that had followed. As Waka continued to talk to the statue of her past self, Amaterasu wrapped her arms around the youth next to her, placing her head on his shoulder as she tried to hold back tears.

Yuro didn't know what he could say to comfort her, so he simply leaned into her embrace, holding her close as they listed to his past self speak.

Waka had attempted to move on from remembering painful memories, instead turning to talking about current events and reminiscing about past times. To any observer, he knew he probably looked insane, having a one-sided conversation with a statue of a wolf. Despite that, the prophet had a feeling that, somewhere in the spirit world, watching over him, the goddess was listening to him ramble on. Even if she wasn't, speaking to her stone form provided him at least a momentary distraction from the overwhelming sadness and grief.

After what seemed like hours, the moon prophet finally got to his feet, taking one last look at his beloved's stone form. "I must leave now, mon amour. The troops and I are heading out on a mission in the morning, and I must be there for the final preparations." He leaned down, planting a brief kiss on the statue's forehead. "Je t'aime, ma chérie."

With that, he left, floating off in the direction of Sei'an City. After a few moments of silence, Yuro looked at the form of the goddess sitting next to him, her eyes wet from the tears she had failed to keep back. "Ammy," he said, breaking her from the trance she had seemed to fall into, "You okay?"

The youth knew full well she wasn't. Her tears and the sadness on her face gave that away easily. But despite the bits and pieces he had seen from visions of his predecessor's memories, he still didn't know everything about what had happened, what had caused her so much grief and pain in the years before he met her, and he wanted to find out.

Amaterasu got up, walking over to stand in front of her past self. "I haven't seen him for five hundred years," she said quietly, pausing before continuing. "For so many nights I had nightmares about his death, dreamed of the peaceful times we had once shared." Tears began to run down her face again as she briefly thought back to those memories. "After I met you, I thought I had finally started to get over him, but seeing him again in person… And not even being able to talk to him…"

The goddess trailed off, the tears coming freely now. Slowly, the youth walked over to her side, gently turning her around to face him. "Ammy," he said softly, "Up on the Plain, right before I opened that portal… I saw Florence."

Amaterasu looked back at him with a bit of surprise, knowing which memory he had seen.

"Right before Waka created that hole in space-time, he had a vision," Yuro continued, looking into her eyes. Even without her divine power, those green irises still seemed to carry the power of all the world's forests and fields.

The goddess had expected as much, considering Waka's prophetic abilities and the fact that he had been convinced that sacrificing himself was the only way to save the world from Yami's evil. However, she was still curious to know exactly what it was he had seen in the moments before his death.

"He saw that he was part of a plan set in motion long before he was born, a plan to keep you safe so that you can defeat the evils that threaten this world." Yuro paused before continuing. "And at that plan's fruition, he saw us."

Amaterasu again looked at the youth in surprise. "Us?" she asked, voicing her confusion.

Yuro nodded. "You and I, living a life of peace and happiness." Again the youth hesitated. "I don't know how long it is before that happens, nor what role I have to play in it. But… that was the end he saw."

The goddess briefly closed her eyes, part of her still trying to comprehend what the youth had told her. Was such a peace even possible? And even so, how could they possibly get to that point, considering the strength Yami possessed and the loss of her powers? She had believed that such a life of peace was possible once, back when she and Waka had lived in peace on the Celestial Plain after Yami's defeat. The dark lord's return over a thousand years later had changed all that. He had somehow survived their fight on the Ark of Yamato… and returned stronger than ever. If even she at her full power centuries ago couldn't destroy the dark lord, what chance did they have now at being rid of him forever?

Yuro saw the doubt on her face and reached out, brushing his hand along the side of her face. He gave her a reassuring smile as she looked back at him. Even though he had no clue how they were to get through the trials ahead, the vision he had seen through Waka's memories gave him hope.

As Amaterasu looked back at him, she noticed the hope in his eyes. He had faith in what he had seen, in them. _In her._ As she came to that realization, her body briefly glowed, momentarily regaining some of the radiant aura she used to carry, and she felt a small bit of her divinity return to her.

It was now Yuro who was looking on in surprise as the goddess suddenly transformed, her wolf ears and tail returning and divine markings appearing along her face and body. Reaching for the brush at her side, the sun goddess looked up at the night sky. Almost hesitantly, she drew a circle in the sky, not expecting the technique to work.

For a moment, it seemed like it hadn't. Then, suddenly, a bright orb of light appeared where the circle had been, the sun casting rays of hope down on the world below.

A smile appeared on Amaterasu's face as she put away her brush, looking back at the youth. "Well," she said, "I suppose Waka's predictions have never failed me before."

Before he could react, she leaned forward, wrapping her arms around him as she pressed her lips to his. After a few moments, they broke the kiss, remaining in a close embrace as the sun above shone brighter than it had for a long time.

Amaterasu knew that she was still a long way off from regaining her full power. Yuro's belief in her, however, had been restored at least part of it, and even if it was only a single brush technique, it was enough to inspire hope within her. If one technique could be restored, then that meant she could find a way to restore the others… and perhaps, regain enough strength to give them a chance to stop Yami once and for all.

* * *

Although things aren't all bad for Ammy in this chapter, I still can't help but feel for her. To mourn for someone as long as she has, then get the chance to see them again, but be unable to actually interact with them, has to be a terrible feeling. Thankfully, though, she's at least got someone to help her through it, and in the process, we see that not all faith has been lost.

Of course, actually building enough fate for Ammy to regain her full powers is easier said than done, considering that the present-day world is about to face the unchecked power of Yami and Izanami with very little to stand in their way. Not to mention the fact that Ammy and Yuro have to find a way back to the present day as well. But hey, can't make things too easy, right?

For those unaware, Izanami is one of the creation gods in Shinto legends. The most well-known tale of her is the story of how her husband (and brother, because no polytheistic religion is complete without incest) Izanagi travelled to the afterlife in an attempt to revive her after she died giving birth to the god of fire. While there, he saw her rotting form and fled in terror, sealing the entrance to the afterlife with a massive boulder to keep her from chasing him back into the world of the living. The whole thing ends up angering her greatly and she swears to kill a thousand souls every day if he abandons her, to which Izanagi replies that he will give life to 1,500, thus creating the cycle of life and death. That same situation also leads to the birth of Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, and Susanoo, who are created when Izanagi cleans his face after the ordeal.

I'd highly recommend reading _Birth of Darkness_, one of my short stories on here, for more background on Izanami and the legend of Izanagi/Izanami if you want more information regarding those two. As always, it certainly isn't necessary to understand the plot of this story, as I'll always try to write in such a way that each story is independant from the others, but it will give some extra background if you want it.

The holidays are coming up, so the next chapter could be slightly delayed as a result (yay, retail jobs). It also might not since there's always a chance I slip away from family gatherings and write out of boredom, and since it also seems like whenever I say something will be delayed I somehow manage to do the opposite.

As always, constructive feedback is appreciated, and thank you all for your continued support :)

French translations (for those who've forgotten already / too lazy to use Google):

je t'aime = I love you  
mon amie = my love  
ma chérie = my dear

EDIT (12/23/14): Yes I mispelled stuff. In my defense, I usually write at 2am, my sleep-deprived brain can't handle the challenge that is the English language :P


	9. Cursed

It had taken only moments for Izanami's curse to spread across the once-divine realm.

As he looked at the dead and withered husks of what had once been the Celestial Plain's great forests, Chibiterasu thought on that name for a moment. Tsukuyomi had caught up with him and the other survivors moments earlier, and told the young sun god about her appearance. Neither of them knew much more about her other than what the legends told - how she had become the goddess of death following a spat with his grandfather Izanagi, and swore to destroy all the life Izanagi had created. But those tales had taken place over two thousand years ago, and the gateway to the afterlife had been sealed away by Izanagi ever since.

The young god involuntarily shivered a bit as he thought on the barrier that had hidden away that dark place. Although the massive boulder Izanagi had placed there was merely a physical barrier, the afterlife was a separate realm from that of the living. A spiritual barrier lied over the cave as well, forbidding the spirits from within to return to the land of the living. To break past that barrier would require strength beyond imagining, yet Izanami had done so.

The thought terrified him. Not even his mother could stand against Yami, and the dark lord's power was miniscule in comparison to the maiden of death. Even if they could escape the rapidly-decaying Celestial Plain before the dark forces found them, it was only a matter of time before the mortal world below found the same fate, and they stood no chance against this new enemy if it came to a fight.

Even though the group of surviving Celestials wasn't aware of Izanami's arrival, they too had sensed the wave of pure malice that had shaken the divine realm upon her release. Even now as they waited within the shelter of the once-majestic forest, he could see the terror on their faces, the whispers of panic as their world crumbled around them.

His thoughts were interrupted as a dark-furred wolf rapidly approached, transforming into the form of Tsukuyomi as he stopped in front of the sun god. The lunar deity had clearly seen some action while away, judging by his exhaustion and a couple fresh wounds on his body.

"Another pack of imps," the moon god said, catching his breath, "more numerous than the scouting parties we've run into already." He shook his head, continuing. "They're spreading across the Plain faster than before. We have to get off this realm quickly, or they'll find us."

Chibiterasu nodded, preparing the survivors to move out. They had been following this pattern for the past few days now - either Tsukuyomi or Chibiterasu would move forward to scout ahead while the other remained behind to defend the Celestials in the event a pack of the dark creatures stumbled upon them. With the sheer number of foes on the Plain, they simply couldn't afford to take risks. Were they to travel as a group and stumble upon a pack of imps, the ensuing battle would likely cause more than a few Celestial casualties. At least a single scout could easily slip away if need be.

As the pack of survivors began to move onward, the sun god looked towards their destination, the large mountain that stood on the northern side of the Celestial Plain. According to his uncle, a gateway to the mortal realm still stood there, hidden within the tunnels underneath the mountain. It was the closest way off the Plain that wasn't already overrun by Izanami's minions, and their best chance at escaping before the majority of the dark host discovered them.

As they came to a clearing, the entrance to the mountain's tunnels starting to come into view, the sun god found himself feeling some hope for the first time in the past several days. Hope that was almost immediately killed by the sound of a loud horn behind them.

Chibiterasu's heart sank as he whirled towards the sound, seeing a large pack of imps rapidly approaching behind them. Drawing his brush, the sun god drew a quick horizontal stroke at the base of the distant treeline, summoning a power slash that sent a number of the dead trees falling to the ground, momentarily delaying the approaching forces.

Hearing the sound of a sword being drawn behind him, he turned towards Tsukuyomi, who had his katana in his hand, ready for combat.

His uncle looked at him for a moment. "Take the Celestials and lead the way into the tunnels. I'll keep them off our backs."

Although Chibiterasu knew that the moon god wasn't in ideal shape for that type of combat, there was no time to argue, and they couldn't afford to send the rest of the survivors in alone due to the possibility of more of the dark creatures waiting for them inside. Nodding, the sun god, drew his sword and reflector, running to the front of the group as he ushered the remaining Celestials towards the tunnels ahead.

Tsukuyomi's concerns were quickly proved valid, as three imps leaped at him from the darkness of the tunnels. Bringing his shield up, the sun god easily blocked the first imp's strike, exiting the block into a spinning slash that sliced into the creatures back, quickly killing it. As the second brought its weapon towards the young god, he continued the motion of his spin, using the edge of his blade to turn aside the attack.

Although the imp was sent staggering away, momentarily stunned, there was no time to launch a counterattack as the final imp threw its shamisen towards him, the deadly weapon spinning rapidly.

Moving quickly, Chibiterasu leapt to the side, exiting into a roll as he switched out his sword for his Devout Beads. Flicking the rosary like a whip, his weapon latched around the now-unarmed imps foot, pulling it towards him as the sun god pulled back. As his foe flew towards him, he aimed a heavy swing with his reflector, slamming the shield into the creature's head and sending it to the ground, unmoving.

The sun god had just enough time to backstep as the imp he had previously stunned, clearly not learning from its previous attempt, again leapt at him. Knowing his weapon had the advantage in range, Chibiterasu swung his rosary at his foe, the strike catching the imp in midair and sending it flying into the tunnel wall.

With the imps dispatched, the sun god quickly surveyed the area, scanning for any more threats within the entryway of the tunnel as he sheathed his Devout Beads, again drawing his sword, the blade's shorter reach of more use in the narrow tunnels ahead. Seeing no other enemies ahead, he signaled for the Celestials to move forward, charging ahead in front of them.

At the back of the group, Tsukuyomi was having a much tougher time than his nephew, the sheer numbers of the creatures making it difficult for the lunar deity to hold them off on his own. Things began to become a bit more manageable as the group of survivors entered the tunnels, the narrow path restricting the number of imps that could attack the moon god at once.

Of course, the narrow tunnels also prevented him from using his katana at full length, forcing him to fight without his shockwave technique the extended blade allowed, a less-than-ideal situation considering that the moon god was already weary and beaten from all the combat he had been in the past few days.

His strength rapidly fading, Tsukuyomi looked around for some sort of advantage as he retreated, eventually noticing a segment of the tunnel wall that had started to crumble. With his free hand, the lunar deity grabbed a throwing knife from the belt strapped to his chest, hurling the small blade towards the weakened wall. As the knife hit its target, a shockwave of lunar energy launched from the weapon, slicing into the wall and forcing more of it to collapse, blocking off the tunnel behind them from further reinforcements.

The threat behind them taken care of, at least for the moment, he sheathed his katana, taking the chance to catch his breath. Ahead of him, the group of Celestials stopped as they reached their destination. Seeing the commotion, the moon god rushed towards the front of the group, looking at the torii that sat in the middle of the chamber, an image of the mortal realm glowing between the posts of the sacred gate.

Tsukuyomi offered a silent prayer to his sister at seeing the portal was still intact and active. Soon, the group of survivors found themselves on the mortal world below, not far from the temple Chibiterasu had built near the outskirts of Kyoto. Once he was sure everyone had entered through the gate, the moon god drew his katana, slicing through the other end of the torii and breaking the portal, preventing any pursuit from the imps that had been chasing them.

Fortunately for the survivors, the temple was still mostly intact, apparently having sustained minimal damage from Susanoo's storm that had hit days earlier. After a few minutes, the group had moved in, the sacred place providing a much-needed opportunity for them to rest and regain their bearings after the ordeal that had taken place on the divine realm above.

Chibiterasu, knowing the place better than everybody, found himself keeping busy as the remaining Celestials settled in, ensuring that the building's defenses were in place and would hold against whatever would come during the night. Once he was satisfied everything was in order, the young sun god stepped outside, standing at the temple's entryway, overlooking the sunset.

He found Tsukuyomi there, sitting on the steps that led up to the temple, watching with sadness as the shining orb disappeared over the edge of the horizon. Chibiterasu had never seen his uncle so down, considering how the moon god had a tendency to be stoic and serious even in the most dire of circumstances. Of course, with all they had lost over the past few days, these were far from normal circumstances.

They remained there for a few moments, the lunar deity seemingly unaware of his nephew's presence, until Tsukuyomi finally spoke.

"We stand no chance without Amaterasu."

The moon god was stating the obvious. Both of them were well aware that the powers arrayed against them were far too much to take on without the power of the sun goddess and the elder Brush Gods. Even though Chibiterasu could still wield his brush techniques, thanks to the power of the Brush Gods' children, his power still paled in comparison to his mother's.

As he thought of his mother, the young sun god looked at the setting sun, the light of the glowing orb seeming to radiate an aura of calm and filling him with an unusual sense of hope. In that moment, he knew the power that caused the light he now saw was not his own.

"She isn't gone," Chibiterasu replied, "I can sense her power. It's distant, and weak, but it's there."

The moon god looked back in disbelief. "There is no way your mother survived that attack, Chibi," he said, pausing for a moment. "Izanami's forces now completely control the Plain. Without her powers, there's no way she could have escaped in time."

Indeed, they had just barely made it off the divine realm themselves. If his sister hadn't been distracting Yami, it was unlikely they would have been able to get the same head start against the forces of darkness. Amaterasu and Yuro lacked the same head start, and without the goddess's powers, had less potential in combat than their group had.

Tsukuyomi blinked as he thought of the human youth his sister had rescued from Kyoto days earlier. He knew that it had been the boy's resemblance to Waka that had initially attracted her, that golden hair that had been the defining characteristic of the Moon Tribe. Amaterasu had also mentioned how the youth had seen the prophet's memories, indicating that there was more of a connection between the two than just appearance.

The moon god thought back on the prophet for a moment. In the years following the sun goddess's adventures in Nippon, Waka's prophetic abilities had begun to grow at a rapid pace, visions beginning to appear more frequently, sometimes showing events of the past rather than exclusively those in the future. He had eventually started to learn how to control the visions he received. As the prophet had described it, it was as if every possibility in the future was a door, and he had the ability to see inside the doors, to see what could be.

During the last few years before his death in Florence, the prophet had even managed to conjure some of those doors into existence, opening portals in time to both the past and future. If Yuro shared some sort of connection with Waka, then perhaps the human also held the power to manipulate those portals.

Tsukuyomi quickly got to his feet as the pieces clicked together in his mind. Chibiterasu had said that his mother's power was there, yet distant… and there had been no conventional means for Amaterasu and Yuro to escape the Celestial Plain in the moments following the attack. If the human youth did indeed share his predecessor's abilities, those powers would have provided a means of escape… and would explain why the sun goddess's power seemed so distant to her son.

If Amaterasu was indeed in a different time, then surely she had no idea of what Yami had unleashed after the attack on the Plain. They needed to find her, warn her about Izanami's return, which meant finding a way to travel though time to the place his sister now resided.

A plan started to form in his head, and he turned to look at his nephew.

"I know where she is," he said, drawing a look of confusion from the young sun god. After a few moments of conversation, the moon god brought Chibiterasu up to speed, explaining how the sun goddess had likely escaped to a different time, and the need to find and warn her of the dark forces that stood against them.

"I will travel to the Spirit Gate in Yoshpet," Tsukuyomi continued, "and use it to find and bring back Amaterasu. You must remain here and lead the surviving Celestials to safety."

Chibiterasu shook his head. Messing with time almost never ended well. "I'm not letting you travel to that place alone. Don't forget what that portal did to my mother so many years ago."

"The demons will be on this world soon enough," The moon god replied, "This place will likely be one of the first they attack. We cannot leave the Celestials on their own." He paused in thought before continuing. "You are Amaterasu's heir, Chibiterasu. They trust you more than they do me. Rest here for the night, then in the morning, lead them towards where Kamiki Village once stood. Though Konohana has weakened over the years, I sense that the portal to the spirit realm that stood there is still intact. You'll be as safe as you can be there."

The sun god sighed in exasperation, not liking the idea of his uncle again going off on his own but also not having any better ideas. Tsukuyomi was right - it would be easier for him to convince the Celestials to leave the apparent shelter of the temple for the remains of Kamiki. If they could make it to the sacred tree Konohana, they could use the gate that stood there to travel to the Cave of Nagi. Considering the gate would only allow those pure of heart to pass, it would assist greatly in keeping away the demons that were sure to come.

Silently, Chibiterasu nodded. They truly didn't have any better options.

Tsukuyomi gave him a slight grin. "Good luck."

Then, the moon god turned, walking away from the temple as he shifted into his wolf form, soon darting off into the distance.

A moment later, he was gone.

* * *

A bit of a shorter chapter than usual, but this was the most logical place to cut it off. I originally wanted to put in some more of Ammy/Yuro's adventures in this chapter as well, but it made more sense to focus on Tsukuyomi and Chibiterasu this time around. Had I included the Ammy/Yuro bits, the chapter probably would've been way too long, even by my standards. Next time, I suppose ;)

We also got to see a bit more of Tsukyomi's arsenal with the moon daggers. After all, he's supposedly only slightly below Amaterasu's power level, so it only makes sense that he's got more tricks up his sleeve than just his katana.

Speaking of Tsuki, the poor guy clearly isn't taking the loss of Yumigami well, even if he doesn't really show it outwardly. Sad, but understandable.

Also, for those who aren't aware, a _torii _is a Japanese gateway that was used to mark the entrance of a shrine. It's the same type of gate used in the games for Golden Gates, as well as the gates that cause various hidden areas to appear (such as the entrance to the Cave of Nagi outside of Konohana, and the entrance to Sasa Sanctuary). A _shamisen _is a guitar-like instrument, and is the weapon wielded by red imps in the original game.

As always, constructive feedback is always appreciated, and thank you all for your continued support :)


	10. Doors

It was a peaceful night in Kamiki Village, one of the first such nights for the small village in a long time. As the moon above cast it's silver beams on the world below, all was quiet in the settlement, its residents all resting peacefully with the curse of the dreaded Orochi finally broken after a century of the monster's tyranny. At the base of the giant tree that overlooked the village, the shrine that had been built in honor of the sacred wolf stood quietly, the sun goddess's power watching over the mortal realm even as she rested in her prison of stone.

Not far from the statue, behind the shelter of one of Konohana's roots, the goddess's future self and her human companion had set up a makeshift camp, mainly consisting of the enchanted wooden mat the sun goddess had found during her travels in Nippon so long ago. They hadn't dared to build anything more complex than that, not wanting to risk being spotted by any of the villagers who currently believed the goddess to be frozen in the stone of the nearby shrine.

Lying on the wooden mat, Amaterasu looked over at Yuro's sleeping form, her companion resting peacefully next to her. Sleep hadn't been as easy for her to come by. The trauma of her encounter with the dark lord Yami, as well as the emotional drain of seeing her long-lost love Waka, had taken its toll on her, preventing her from getting much rest.

Sighing, the sun goddess looked away from the youth, turning her gaze towards the night sky as Yumigami's stars watched over the world below. She envied the peaceful sleep her companion was getting. For too long, rest had been something that seemed to elude her, her dreams filled for years with nightmares of Waka's death, and now with knowledge of the nightmares Yami would be inflicting on the mortal world in their time.

Almost as if in response, the youth shifted a bit in his sleep, murmuring something unintelligible. In his mind, Yuro found himself surrounded by doors, the same doors he had seen when he had unconsciously tapped into his ancestor's powers up on the Celestial Plain. Gateways to different worlds, to different possibilities.

Curious, the youth found himself opening several of the doors, drawn to different ones by some strange magnetism. Within each, he was able to catch a glimpse of a different time and place, of events that had been, or could be. He recognized some of them, watching from a distance as he saw himself dancing with Amaterasu the night they had first met. As he looked into one particular door, Yuro paused for a moment, watching from afar as he and the goddess slept in each other's arms in the present moment.

Suddenly, he felt that same sort of magnetism calling him again, stronger this time, reluctantly closing the door to the present as he stepped towards the door drawing him in. The door opened, and the youth now found himself staring out into space. A bit confused by his surroundings, he quickly looked around.

The doors he had seen before were gone, replaced by the blackness of deep space. As Yuro looked around, he could still sense the energy of those portals, but much more distant, as if every speck of starlight in the vast ocean of space was one of those doors. It seemed as if the door he had stepped through had not led to a certain time or place, but rather to a place that connected all the doors, a nexus leading to every world and every possibility.

As the distant portals drew his attention, he suddenly realized that he was standing on something. The youth looked down to see he was on some sort of odd platform of energy, partially transparent so that he could see the lights of distant stars and portals in the distance below. Looking forward, he saw the platform continue onward, with some sort of shrine at the end, a sword glowing at its centre.

Almost immediately, the feeling of magnetism returned, and Yuro felt himself being drawn towards the mystic weapon. As he looked over the metal blade, the youth felt the same sense of familiarity he had felt when he had first met Amaterasu, the sense that he had seen this weapon, this place before. Slowly, he started to walk towards the sword, transfixed by the weapon's silver glow.

About halfway to the shrine, the youth stopped as the platform suddenly shook. Around the sword, he could see several figures start to take form, each turning to look at him as they took shape.

Yuro attempted to continue forward, but quickly found himself unable, some invisible force preventing him from taking another step forward. As his attempts to approach the shrine failed, the platform shook again as one of the spirits spoke, its distant voice seemingly carried to the furthest reaches of the vast universe before them, despite having the volume of a whisper.

_The one who has lived three lives approaches._

He paused. Three lives? What was this mysterious being talking about?

The voice seemed to hear his very thoughts, the strange entity tilting its head at him, the youth feeling as if it was observing his very soul. No - not his soul, he realized, but his timeline. Everything he ever was, everything he would ever be, even if he didn't know it yet.

_He is confused. Does not know who he was, who he is._

It paused for a moment, glowing eyes seemingly accusing him as it continued.

_No memory of what he did._

None of it made sense to him. Three lives… perhaps it was referring to his memories as Waka as being a second life, but what was the third? Why did he have no recollection of it?

What did he do in that third life?

"Please," he cried out, confused. "I don't understand. Who was I? What did I do?"

The being started at him intently for a few moments, then stepped back, as if uninterested.

_It is not time yet._

Suddenly, the youth felt the invisible force push him backwards, sending him flying away from the shrine and back out the door he had entered. As he continued to move back past all the doors he had looked at previously, the speck of white light that had been the door leading to the shrine began to expand, his vision suddenly overwhelmed with a blinding flash.

The youth jolted up as the flare faded from his vision, taking a couple breaths as he tried to regain his bearings. A quick look around confirmed that he was at the base of Konohana, at the makeshift camp he and Amaterasu had made. At the thought of the sun goddess, Yuro looked to his side, surprised to notice that the goddess was no longer lying at his side.

After taking another moment to recollect himself, he stood up, walking over to the statue of her past self in search of his companion. After a few moments of searching, he found her sitting on one of Konohana's branches up above, gazing up at the dawning sky.

Noticing her companion's approach, the sun goddess turned, giving him a small smile as she offered a hand, pulling the youth up onto the branch alongside her. She grimaced a bit as she did so, her body still sore and tired from her battle with the dark lord the previous day.

Yuro glanced at Amaterasu as he sat next to her. Though her physical injuries seemed to have improved, she looked drained and exhausted.

"How are you feeling?" He asked, concerned.

She lifted her arm a bit, looking at the wound on her side, still wrapped in the makeshift bandage from when they had arrived here the previous day. "It's better," she said, removing the wrapping as she did so, revealing a wicked scar where the cut had been. "I've regained enough divine essence to heal quickly, though not completely. It'll probably be a week or two before that scar's gone. Still a little sore, though."

He gripped her hand, giving her a small smile as he did so. "That's not what I meant."

She looked away, all the emotions of the previous day still running through her. "For half a millenia, I mourned him. I spent every minute of every day missing him, of remembering what once was." Her eyes glistened with tears, all that pain she had been through still far too recent to have been completely dulled. "Never once did I wonder if he had ever felt the same when I was gone. And after last night… Now I know he did, and it just makes it hurt even worse."

Her death as Shiranui hadn't been the last time she had made her beloved wait for her to break free from her stone form. How many years had she put him through the pain that had been her closest companion for five hundred years? How had she never once realized what her regenerations did to him?

"After all that time, after all the pain both of us had been put through by Yami, I thought I could destroy him," she continued, "I even dreamed of it, many times. Of shattering his very essence, and making sure his evil could never again touch this world, never again hurt anyone the way he had hurt us. And now, I finally got that chance, only to fail and almost lose even more."

"We'll find a way." He gave her another smile, trying his best to reassure her. "We'll find a way back to our time, find the others, and together we can figure out how to defeat him. You've protected this world from him for centuries, and I know you still can."

She shook her head. "For all of my power, I couldn't save Waka. And now, I can't even avenge his death." She looked away again, almost in shame. "I couldn't even save you on the Plain. How can I protect the world if I can't even protect the ones I love?"

"Don't say that," he replied, "You didn't need to save me. We got away."

She turned back towards him, her voice raising slightly. "We got lucky!" She took a breath, trying to calm down. "If it wasn't for your portal, we'd both be dead. I finally find someone after Waka's death, and I can't even keep you safe from the same fate."

"You don't need to. We've seen what I'm capable of. I'll learn to control it, how to use it to fend for myself."

"And how will you do that?" She looked at him again, a hint of desperation in her voice. "You only saw a fraction of Yami's power on the Plain. You're not going to be able to stop him by throwing down portals, no matter how well you can control them, if you don't even know how what to do with a sword."

He gave her a smirk at that. "Teach me, then."

* * *

Well then. It has been a very long time. This chapter has gone through several revisions at this point, and that hectic thing called real life has been a bit of a challenge lately, what between moving into a new apartment, working full-time in IT, classes and all the other projects and communities that I probably don't have the time for but do anyway. We'll see how things go in terms of updates from this point on. Ideally my goal is around the "one chapter every two weeks" mark but at least initially I really need to get back into the world and refamiliarize myself with the continuity I write in (thankfully, I made a huge list of character sketches and story/world concepts a while back for this very reason).

As far as the chapter itself goes, Yuro's dream/vision was probably the part that forced this to be redone as many times as it did. I really wanted it to shed a bit of light on Yuro's nature, all the while posing far more questions than it does answers, both to us (well, technically you all) and to Yuro himself. I found with earlier versions that I was either not revealing enough or revealing too much, and it took a fair bit of fine-tuning to really get it down the way I wanted to.

All that work on that particular sequence also really tempted me to go even further down that path with Yuro, but I think I'll save the next bit of it for the next time. Suspense, and all.

On a different note, I know that I've said it before but thank you all for the continued support, both on FAE and on my shorter works. I may not have necessarily had the time to keep pushing content out for a while there but every few weeks or so I would notice an e-mail notification about new reviews or follows on my works and always felt a little bad that I didn't have more time to dedicate to this as I would like. Hopefully that situation will change going forward, because it seems like you all enjoy reading about the adventures of Ammy and Yuro just as much as I do writing them.


	11. Maiden of Death

There was a difference between a peaceful quiet and an ominous quiet.

Chibiterasu knew this well from his travels both on the Celestial Plain and in the mortal realm. In times of peace, even when all was silent, the world never truly became completely quiet. If you listened, you could hear it - the sound of a gentle breeze, leaves dancing to the breath of the planet itself. How could it be silent when the world itself was brimming with life?

That wasn't the silence the sun god faced now, however. As he looked out over the world from the front steps to the temple he had built long ago, not a single sound could be heard. It was unnatural, as if the planet had decided to play dead in a vain attempt to avoid whatever storm Izanami had planned for this realm. He had noticed that same eerie silence every night since the initial attack on the Plain, but it still unnerved him. Pure silence like this was death's domain.

The reality of the situation was still tough to grasp, even for the child of Amaterasu. All the children of the Plain had heard the old tales, of course - how his grandfather had attempted to rescue his beloved from the realm of the dead, only to choose to scorn her due to her mutilated form, earning her eternal ire in the process. But for all the stories, none on the Plain had ever seen her with their own eyes. Even his mother only knew of her from the tales of her father.

As much as he wanted to, however, he couldn't deny the truth. The stories had been true, and she was free to carry out her goal of destroying all of Izanagi's creation. It was only a matter of time before she was finished with the Celestial realm and moved on to this one, leaving a barren, lifeless world in her wake.

As if to accentuate the point, the silence was broken by the sound of distant thunder, an occurrence he could only assume was the doing of the fallen god of storms. Getting to his feet, Chibiterasu headed back towards the temple, taking one last look at the world behind him. It was time to move.

Miles away, far below the depths of the ocean, Susanno stood within the walls of his palace, an ornate structure built within a giant clam, sealed by the barrier of a magical bubble that both camouflaged the building from the outside world and provided an area with oxygen for any guests who lacked the capabilities to breathe underwater. Once, what seemed like a lifetime ago, he had his own kingdom to rule here, watching over the Draconians as they helped him protect the world's oceans. For a moment, he regretted the loss of that life, of everything that had happened before his disputes with his sister had forced him into a life of exile.

Before their conflict had driven him to this.

Part of him knew that his newfound partners would devastate this world, that they would turn this planet into a lifeless rock where nothing could ever survive, not even in the deepest depths of the oceans. But that part of himself was well overshadowed by the part that desired that which had been taken from: his rightful place in the hall of the Celestials, and vengeance on the one who had caused him to lose all that he once had.

His thoughts were interrupted as he felt a chilling wind blow over his shoulder, turning to see the two dark figures of his latest allies. Yami stood in his human form, having all the appearance of some metal construct in his spiked, jet-black armor. His mother stood next to him, hovering a foot above the ground as her body radiated with dark power.

"Susanoo. So good to finally meet the one who helped make all this possible." She chuckled, the sound of her surprisingly pleasant voice sending chills down the storm god's spine. "That fool Izanagi thought his barrier could keep me out forever. Ah… if only he could look down on us now." A wicked smile crawled onto her face. "What would he say if he could see his son now, I wonder?"

The god of thunder tried to ignore the unpleasant feelings her mere presence wrought. "I see the attack was successful." He knew that meant it was likely his sister had fallen, a fact that both pleased and disappointed him. He had wanted to be the one to kill her.

Still, there was always a chance. "What of Amaterasu?"

The smile on the goddess's face vanished as she turned to glare at the armored figure next to her. "It would seem you aren't the only one who's totally incompetent at killing that wretched girl."

"Excellent." Susanoo grinned despite himself, excited at the thought that his vengeance would still be possible.

His excitement didn't go unnoticed by the maiden of death, Izanami turning back to him, that cruel smile returning once again. "I can feel your hatred of her. It's… refreshing." She breathed in deep, as if channeling his negative emotions to fuel her own strength. "Such a pleasant change from so many centuries of despising your father. You'd be surprised how quickly a grudge gets old."

Her fists clenched momentarily as she mentioned him, the walls of the ancient palace trembling at her power. After a few moments, she seemed to relax again. "I swore I would utterly destroy him, you know. Watch the helplessness in his eyes as I demolished all that he had created, all that he loved." That grin returned for a fleeting moment as she relived her dream of revenge in her head. "Yes… and then when everything he had known was gone, when all that was left was madness and despair, I would finally grant him the mercy of death."

The relish in her voice as she spoke of the vengeance she once sought unnerved Susanoo, the god of storms again trying to ignore how unsettling the goddess before him was. "You're a little late for that. I heard he passed long ago, falling against Orochi during his attack on the Plain."

Izanami turned away from him, seemingly studying the Draconian architecture as she paced the room, her tone taking a more serious note. "So I've been told. Alas, all that time planning my vengeance in the underworld, waiting for my escape, and he denies me that pleasure." She turned towards him once more, her eerie smile again on her face. "I suppose his children will make an acceptable substitute."

The goddess gestured, and Susanoo leapt back just in time to avoid being impaled by three metal spikes that had seemingly been conjured out of thin air. Letting his instincts take over, the god drew his yari, dropping into a defensive stance as the glowing aura around her grew brighter. The light became blindingly bright for a moment, then dissipated in a shockwave of energy as the maiden of death screamed, her power reverberating throughout the room.

Susanoo resisted the urge to drop his weapon and cover his ears, howling in pain as he stood his ground against the onslaught of dark energy. For a few painstakingly long moments, he could hear many other voices in hers, the voices of the many spirits the goddess held dominion over. Ending her sonic attack with a cry, another shockwave pulsed from her body, this one knocking the god back several feet.

Recovering, he barely managed to return to his feet in time to meet Izanami's charge, the goddess conjuring a ring of metal blades that spun around her body. With complete precision, she chained attack after attack against the god of storms, using her control over the blades to use them as an extension of herself and putting him on the back foot. With another gesture, she sent the blades hurtling towards him, the god barely managing to bring his polearm into a spin just quickly enough to block the deadly projectiles.

Trying to take advantage of the brief respite, Susanoo summoned the power of lightning, sending an arc of electricity out of his outstretched hand towards the goddess. With another series of gestures, a barrier of solid metal appeared in front of her, easily absorbing the electric attack. Another gesture, and the shield splintered and shattered, the shards flying towards him in another projectile attack.

Caught off guard, he cut off the attack, trying to roll out of the way of the incoming blades, but was a moment too slow as he felt a stinging pain in his left shoulder, dropping his spear in the process. Getting to his feet, he took a quick look at his injury, seeing a spike of metal about a foot in length pierced through his shoulder. Trying his best to ignore the pain, he grabbed the shard with his right hand, pulling it free and immediately throwing it towards the goddess.

Izanami gestured again as the projectile approached, sending it flying to the side. Her wicked smile returned once again as she clenched her fists, the earth itself seeming to shake as she channeled her power into the ground. She reached towards him, and the god of storms felt the ground start to move beneath his feet, narrowly jumping to the side as a tendril of metal erupted from the ground where he had just been, the goddess moving her hand as she directed the metal through the air.

Seeing her point towards him again, he ducked aside as the tendril curved around, shooting back towards him. Getting back to his feet, Susanoo whirled back to face her, anticipating another tendril strike. To his surprise, it never came, the metal construct instead retreating back towards the goddess, reforming itself into some sort of odd contraption aimed right towards him. Before he could react, Izanami made a pushing motion with her hand, sending a blast of energy through the contraption and directly towards him.

With the energy attack moving too quickly to dodge, Susanoo channeled the power of storms, sending a burst of lightning through his hands to meet the oncoming beam in a vain attempt to overpower the pulse of dark power. His strength was no match for her's, however, and he quickly began losing ground to his opponent's attack, getting sent flying backwards into the wall as the beam overwhelmed his electric attack. Izanami gestured again, and the contraption dissipated into thin air. As he fought to get back to his feet, she began to approach him, conjuring a dagger in her hand, her sadistic grin back on her face.

She stopped a few feet away from him. "Don't worry, Susanoo. Your sister will meet the same fate soon enough."

Seeing her begin to raise the dagger, and knowing he was far too weak to move, let alone fight back, the god of storms did the only thing he could think of. Channeling the energy of storms once more, he sent a bolt of lightning towards them, the blast of electricity landing directly on top of him. As he did during his fight against Amaterasu only a few days prior, he let the energy surge through his body, using his abilities to change his physical form into electrical energy, fleeing what had once been his palace as the bolt of lightning retreated into the sky.

Seeing what he was doing, the goddess threw the dagger, hoping to at least mortally wound him before he could escape, but for the first time that fight, she was too slow, the dagger hitting the ground harmlessly where Susanoo had been only moments earlier. The maiden of death screamed in rage, the very earth trembling at the sound of her fury. For the third time this week, one of Izanagi's children had managed to escape what should have been certain death.

She whirled around to face Yami. "Go to the surface. Find him and his siblings. Burn everything in your path until they choose to reveal themselves or until this world is nothing but a scorched, barren rock."

The armored figure nodded. "And when I find them, my lady?"

"Kill all those who stand with them. Make them watch." She smirked, eyes glistening with rage. "They will realize that all they cared about is gone, that all they swore to protect is dead, and then, only then, will I grant them the sweet release of death."

* * *

So first things first - the day after I posted the previous chapter, I realized that the formatting during Yuro's dream/vision segment somehow got screwed up. For those of you who read that chapter before I fixed it, that section might have been a little bit confusing, or at the least looked a little odd. That's probably what I get for uploading stuff at 3am when I'm too tired to think straight, my bad.

On to this chapter. We finally get to see Izanami in action, and her powers have some similarity to Yami's - not surprising, considering that she created him in the first place. She also clearly has some issues with letting go of anger, considering that the incident with Izanagi that sparked this whole thing happened before Amaterasu was even born. I feel like she and Kabegami could probably start a club for deities who've held onto a grudge for thousand of years. I mean, they wouldn't, seeing as how Izanami's only real goal seems to be the utter destruction of all life, but they both have the whole "angry at someone for 2,000 years" thing in common.

Speaking of deities who have been angry at people for unreasonable amounts of time, Susanoo has that whole grudge thing going on with Ammy, it would seem. In a move that probably wasn't surprising in the least, he's also now been betrayed by the two dark gods that he partnered with, which probably wasn't all that wise of a decision in the first place considering both of them want nothing more than to see all of Izanagi's children dead. In any case though, it would seem we have another piece on the board with him now on the run.

Now that I mention that whole Susanoo-Amaterasu grudge thing, I wonder exactly what happened to make all that happen. Something to reveal another time, I suppose.

As always, constructive feedback is appreciated, and thank you all for your continued support!


	12. Kamui

Tsukiyomi couldn't help but shiver as he stepped into the frozen wastes of Kamui. Despite the extreme cold, the dark-furred wolf felt slightly reassured at the sight of the northern region of Nippon, most of it already buried under a thick layer of snow and ice all while a snow shower dumped even more of the stuff across the land.

Everything in the mortal world had changed immensely over the centuries as civilizations grew and uprooted nature as they expanded and fought amongst themselves. But yet, as metal cities rose and began to dominate the modern world, the northernmost island of Nippon had remained relatively unchanged compared to the main island of the nation. A number of human settlements had grown on the island over the years, but most were fairly small in size, certainly nowhere near the scale of cities like Sei'an, and most remained fairly spread out, the majority of the land between them left the same way it had been the last time his sister had adventured there.

Even with all the events the past week had brought, it was comforting to the deity to be able to travel through untouched lands. Although Amaterasu loved the exuberance and liveliness of the populated regions to the south, Tsukiyomi had always preferred solitude. Yumigami and his sister had been the only exceptions to that rule, and besides, travelling through the more densely populated areas with his divine equipment always had the tendency to draw unneeded attention.

Unfortunately, the less populated areas of Nippon also tended to be heavily populated by Yami's demons, a fact that was quickly highlighted as a group of four Namahages and a Dogu jumped out at the deity, the four lesser demons each wielding a perverted version of a naginata that appeared to more closely resemble a massive cleaver than the elegant polearm it was based on. The nearest of the demons let out a loud screech at the moon god, drawing its weapon as it prepared to attack, the rest of its fellow creatures following suit.

Tsukiyomi was already in motion, charging towards the first Namahage as he summoned his divine energy to shift into his human form, exiting into a roll as he drew his katana in a single fluid motion. Planting his left foot, the deity threw his weight backwards, spinning around in a clockwise motion as he aimed a slash of his blade across the dark creature's chest. As he did so, the demon swung as well, the two blades meeting with a loud clash. Rather than attempting to force his way through the creature's guard, the moon god let the momentum from the clash carry him in the opposite direction, twirling his blade as he spun in the other direction, striking at the creature several times in succession as he twisted repeatedly, each letting out a clang as the Namahage blocked the attacks.

Hearing another one of the beasts screech somewhere behind him, he grabbed one of the knives from his belt, bringing it up just in time to deflect a strike from the second demon. Continuing the motion of the knife, he brought it forwards towards the first creature, throwing it towards the ground at its feet. The dagger released a pulse of lunar energy as it hit the ground, the resulting shockwave sending the Namahage flying backwards and knocking the beast out of the fight, at least for the time being.

Turning his attention towards the demon that had tried to hit him from behind, Tsukiyomi brought his blade around in an overhead swing as it tried to recover after its deflected strike left it off balance, slicing the creature in half diagonally before it could bring its blade up to block. Wheeling around to face the other two Namahages, the lunar deity quickly found himself on the defensive as the two attacked in unison, backing up to keep them at a manageable distance as he waited for an opening.

Seeing one of his opponents begin to attack out of turn with its companion, he stepped forward as he slashed at his assailant, the demon getting caught off guard as their blades clashed, staggering it momentarily. Taking advantage of its disorientation, Tsukiyomi turned towards the other, knocking it aside with a powerful kick before turning his blade to block another strike from the original demon, the latter having regained its footing.

Launching himself backwards into another clockwise spin, the moon god flipped the switch on his blade's hilt as he spun, the mechanism within the katana engaging as the blade increased to a size and a half of its original length. Caught by surprise by its opponent's increased reach, the demon didn't have enough time to block the resulting shockwave that extended from the weapon, the blade of lunar energy easily dispatching the creature.

The Dogu charged at him now, the statue-like creature wielding twin swords that appeared to be completely separate from the rest of its body. Knowing his sword was too long and cumbersome to adequately block his opponent's quicker attacks, Tsukiyomi flipped the switch again, reverting his blade back to its original length as he dropped back into a defensive stance, backing away as he blocked a flurry of rapid strikes from the clay golem. After another series of attacks had similar ineffectiveness, the creature teleported backwards, shaking as it summoned five floating blades, each beginning to spin around the battlefield. Instinctively, the deity dropped into a roll, narrowly dodging the projectiles as all five blades launched themselves towards where he had just been.

Seeing an opening, he charged at the demon, unleashing his own flurry of lightning-fast attacks, each chipping away a small segment of the clay that made up the creature's body. Hearing a shriek behind him, he whirled around, bringing up his katana to block a strike from the first Namahage that had engaged him, throwing a knife behind him at the Dogu to knock it away from the fight as he did so. Noticing the demon he had kicked away earlier also recovering, the moon god turned another strike from the creature aside with his blade, using the momentum of his counter to spin around and slice the demon in two.

Grabbing another knife, he turned to face the remaining Namahage, throwing the projectile at the charging beast and hitting it squarely in the chest. The creature let out a painful cry as it staggered backwards, a noise that was quickly cut off as the deity rushed forward and cut it in half with a quick horizontal strike. The moon god caught his breath for a moment before remembering the Dogu was still in the picture, raising his blade in a defensive stance as he scanned the battlefield for the clay demon. As if on cue, he heard the sound of the beast's teleport behind him, glancing out of the corner of his eye to see the remaining creature charging at him at lightning speed.

Summoning his lunar energies, Tsukiyomi rolled aside as he cloaked himself, leaving behind an image of himself where he had just been, planning to finish off the beast as it finished off the illusion. Before he had the chance to land the finishing blow, however, he was distracted by a loud yell as a dark-cloaked woman with fiery red hair leapt in the way between the Dogu and the moon god's illusion, blocking both the creature's swords with a short, curved blade in an attempt to save what she thought was a traveler under attack.

Catching it off guard, she kicked it square in the chest, staggering it back a couple steps as she launched into a flurry of attacks with the curved sword. Despite her ferocity, however, the short range of her weapon was at a disadvantage against the two blades of her opponent, who blocked each strike easily before landing a solid hit to the face with the hilt of one of its weapons, knocking her aside and forcing her to lose grip of her weapon.

As she hit the ground, she carried her momentum into a roll, quickly getting to her feet as she grabbed two tantōs from her cloak, holding each dagger with the blade facing backwards. She launched herself back at the golem, the quick nature of her weapons allowing her to chain together attacks faster than during her previous assault. This time, she managed to land a couple strikes, damaging the demon further, though it still managed to block the majority of her attacks.

Bringing herself into a flip that landed her behind her opponent, she swung both blades at its back in an attempt to finish it off, only to be shocked as it vanished into thin air, the creature teleporting behind her. Quickly realizing what it had done, she turned around to see it charging straight towards her, too quick and too close to bring her weapons into position to block the incoming onslaught.

Luckily for the girl, however, Tsukiyomi had been prepared for the move, the still-invisible god moving between the two, dropping the illusion keeping him cloaked as he blocked the creature's strike, much to the surprise of the other two combatants. Whirling around, he threw another one of his lunar daggers, the shockwave knocking the creature off balance long enough for the moon god to slice it in half with one final strike.

The deity watched for a moment as the creature disintegrated into thin air before turning to the cloaked girl. "You're welcome," he said, sheathing his katana as he moved to pick up the daggers he had thrown during the fight.

She glared at him as she put away her twin daggers. "Well, I'm sorry for trying to save your life. It was about to do the same thing to you before I stepped in."

Tsukiyomi gave a quick smirk. "I had it covered," he said, his tone growing more serious. "But if you're going to risk your life to save random strangers, you should at least try not to get yourself killed in the process."

She scoffed at him as she stepped towards her fallen sword. "You're just a bundle of fun, aren't you? It's no wonder you travel alone with that sort of attitude."

It was his turn to give her a glare this time. "I prefer it that way." He glanced at the curved sword as she picked it up. The length and size of the blade resembled that of a tachi, but it looked to be far too new to have been such a blade, considering that those weapons hadn't been forged by humans for well over a thousand years. Though he was a bit curious about the origins of such a weapon, his curiosity was far outweighed by the desire to end the conversation and continue on his journey.

The girl started to follow him as he turned to walk away. "So you mean to tell me that you've never traveled with anybody else? And it doesn't get boring?"

His thoughts involuntarily turned back to the battle with the demons up on the Celestial Plain, to the moment Yumigami faded as his sister lost her connection to her divine power. "I made an exception once. She and I, we... got… separated."

"Oh." There was a brief, awkward moment of silence before she continued her attempts at conversation. "Is that why you're out here wandering this frozen paradise? Searching for her?"

Tsukiyomi sighed with irritation as his attempts to walk away were halted as she stepped in front of him, the girl clearly not looking like she was going to stop anytime soon. "Not really," he replied, trying to find a way to answer her question that wouldn't reveal his true nature. "I'm looking for my sister, actually." Part of the truth would suffice, he supposed.

Unfortunately for the lunar deity, his response was not sufficient for his unwanted companion, who turned to follow him again as he again tried to walk past her. "And what makes you so sure she's out here? You may not have noticed, but there's nothing out here anymore besides snow, ice, and demons. Not exactly a huge tourist destination nowadays."

He stopped, turning to face her, his annoyance continuing to grow from her persistent attempts to get him to be social. Again he searched for the right response, not wanting to have to get into the Spirit Gate and all the time travel details that went along with it. "There's a legend telling of a village with people the size of ants hidden inside a mystic forest somewhere up here. She went to search for it." To his surprise, he saw a glint of recognition in her eyes as he spoke, as if she was intimately familiar with the story he was referring to. He had thought that the tales of the Poncles had been lost to the mortal realm centuries ago.

"I've heard it," she replied, her face brightening a bit as if holding onto a good memory. "My grandmother used to tell it all the time when I was little. The stories all say the forest was cursed so that any outsiders who entered would find themselves lost forever." Her smile disappeared after a moment, the girl looking away, distant.

Had he been his sister, Tsukiyomi would have continued the conversation, trying to find out the reason behind her sudden change in emotions, but he preferred his solitude, opting instead to again try to end their interaction. "Don't you have a village or something you should be heading back to?"

Her mood seemed to drop even further at that, the girl taking a moment before speaking again. "Not really." She paused briefly before continuing, turning back to look at him. "My people's village was fairly remote, even by the standards of this place." She waved out towards the wide expanse of snow as if to punctuate the point. "When the demons started to come in force, we were one of the first ones they raided. We held them off for a while, but they eventually drove us out and we started roaming from place to place." Her eyes closed momentarily as she involuntarily relieved past memories. "My partner and I got separated from the rest of our people during one of the attacks. I've been trying to find whatever's left of my people since."

He again attempted to try and convince her to go away. "And what about your partner? Shouldn't he be looking for you right about now?"

"No." Her sad demeanor worsened. "He didn't make it. I'm all on my own, just like you."

The moon god immediately regretted his previous question, though he wasn't sure if it was out of compassion or due to the fact that he had unintentionally lengthened their conversation. "I'm sorry," he said, trying to sound sincere. Amaterasu had always been better with this sort of thing than him.

"Wasn't your doing." She sighed, briefly looking away before turning back to him. "Look, I can tell you don't want me here, but I can help you. It's not like I have any leads on where my people are now, so if I'm going to aimlessly wander around the snow in search of them I might as well help another traveller out as I do it." She glanced down at her sheathed sword briefly. "Besides, you've already seen that I'm plenty capable."

Tuskiyomi raised an eyebrow at her. "Capable? Last I remember, I was the one who had to save you from that demon."

She gave him another glare. "Last I remember, that thing was about to stab you in the chest before I showed up." She cut him off as he tried to fire off another retort. "I know, I know, you 'had it covered.' Still, I doubt you'll find many up here who could hold their own as long as I did, and I know this land better than anybody. I guarantee you'll find this mystic forest of yours quicker with a guide that knows the land."

He sighed in annoyance. Truthfully, from what he had seen she did appear to be at least somewhat skilled - at least, by mortal standards - and considering he visited the mortal realm far less than his sister did, it would probably be a faster journey to Yoshpet if he had someone who knew the lay of the land, even if accepting meant he would lose the increased speed travelling in his wolf form provided. "Fine," he said, after several seconds of thought, "As long as you don't slow me down. I don't have time to waste."

"Don't worry about that," she replied with a slight smirk, as if such a thought was even possible. "I'm Sukā, by the way."

The deity froze for a second as she waited for his reply. He still didn't really want to reveal his divine nature if at all possible, which meant he couldn't risk using his real name. Frantically thinking, he simply said the first name that came to his mind. "Ushiwaka. Nice to meet you, I suppose." He mentally cursed himself. His sister would not be pleasant to deal with if she heard about this.

She gave him a quick smile before he turned, following behind him as he continued his journey north. "Pleasure to meet you, Ushiwaka."

* * *

Oh, Tsuki. Tsuki. You done goofed. Guess he should probably hope he gets the chance to explain things to Ammy before Sukā gets the chance to talk with her. I doubt those fancy illusions would do much against an angry sun goddess…

As is typical with any character I introduce, let me take a moment to talk about Sukā's weapons. The chapter already briefly touched on the tachi - it's an older style of Japanese sword, used mainly before the katana became commonplace. Historians generally indicate the first use of the tachi around the tenth century, about 500 years or so before the katana as we know it began to see widespread use amongst samurai. The tantō, a type of knife or dagger (the word tantō roughly translates to "short sword"), was made around the same time as the tachi and was commonly wielded alongside the tachi by samurai of the era. Some designs of the dagger have even served as the inspiration for a number of modern tactical knives.

Speaking of Sukā, I would have liked to put a bit more of her backstory in here, but the majority of the chapter had already been dedicated to the fight between her, Tsuki, and the demons, and I didn't want to cram that much more into what was already a decently packed chapter. Plus, withholding information is fun. For me, anyway.

Also, I can't put into words how badly the Doctor Who fan in me wanted to use the phrase "timey-wimey" when referring to the Spirit Gate.

As always, constructive feedback is appreciated, and thank you all for your continued support!


	13. The Lost Prophet

It's a funny thing, death.

When one thinks of losing someone they love, the moment of their death often seems like it would be the worst moment of the experience. One single instant of overwhelming grief, anger, and sadness, a mix of emotions so powerful it could drive men mad, even break them entirely. Even Izanagi and Izanami, the gods of creation, had fallen victim to the despair of loss, the goddess falling into insanity while her bereaved husband slowly sunk into apathy and depression.

The golden-haired man stared out at the resting village below as he pondered, a calm wind carrying the scent of Konohana's blossoms past the sacred deck where he stood. For a long time, he too had believed the worst experience of loss was the instant it happened. When he had lost his beloved to the eight-headed demon, he had felt that rush of crippling emotion. Even now, well after the day it had happened, he could still relive that horrible moment as he watched his goddess turn to stone, his body overwhelmed with grief and the knowledge that he had failed to arrive in time to save her. Even knowing that the sun goddess would one day return did little to abate the myriad of feelings that had washed over him.

It had been a terrible day. And yet, it wasn't the worst part. That honor went to the days like these, the days of absolute peace and tranquility where everything was right with the world. Everything, that is, except for her. The days had continued to pass, and would continue to pass, and the sun goddess would still be gone. His prophecies had shown her returning of course, as he knew she would, but even then, that day waited a century in the future. For the next hundred years, there would be nothing but peace and serenity. For perhaps the first time in his life, there was no battle to fight, no danger imminently lurking around the next corner. There was no threat he needed to deal with, no need for him to lead his Tau Troopers into combat. Over the next century, he could live in peace… but he had no idea how to do that without Amaterasu.

The moon prophet looked on as another false sunrise broke the horizon, the glowing orb projecting light out over the world as usual, but without the warmth and feeling of hope it once had, as if the celestial body was also mourning the loss of its patron goddess. He couldn't even remember how many of these sunrises he had seen since he had lost his beloved, the days since seemingly blending together to the point that deciphering one from another was nearly impossible.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the waking village below, the residents of Kamiki waking up to another day without the threat of Orochi and the armies of demons that followed him. Waka had come to know several of them during his frequent pilgrimages to the goddess's resting place, though he rarely talked with any of them at length. While many of them also mourned the loss of the sun goddess, they didn't understand her true nature like he did, knowing her only as the white wolf that had so bravely fought the dark serpent at Nagi's side.

Waka looked over at the human warrior's home at that thought, the weapon racks outside the structure still holding a variety of wooden training swords, though Nagi hadn't found the need to use them ever since Orochi's defeat. The prophet glanced to his side briefly, his hand brushing against the flute strapped to his belt. A part of him wished that Orochi's demons still plagued this world, if only so that he could wield the hidden plasma blade once more, and perhaps forget some of his misery in the process.

The prophet snapped his head back up towards the warrior's home as he heard the sound of something rushing past, his heart skipping a beat as he saw what appeared to be a flash of white fly past the building, the wooden swords seemingly disappearing in the process. For the first time since Orochi had fallen, Waka felt a glimmer of hope within him. He knew that streak of white all too well. He remained still for a moment, stunned, before turning back towards the path to the base of the sacred tree, breaking into a run as he did so.

In the village below, Amaterasu felt an unusual amount of exhaustion over her lupine form as she left the village in the direction of Shinshu Field, carrying the wooden blades she had "borrowed" from Nagi. Although her strength had recovered remarkably quickly over the past few days thanks to the unexpected restoration of part of her divinity, it hadn't been enough to fully heal the physical battering she had taken at the hands of Yami.

She slowed her pace a bit as the lush waterfalls of Hana Valley came into view, her blinding speed no longer necessary now that she was a safe distance from the village, where she could have possibly been recognized in her wolf form. A little while later, she found herself on the path leading to the caves that would one day become Susano's training ground, shifting back into her human form as she did so to better carry the wooden weapons.

Yuro looked up at her as she entered their makeshift camp, looking at the training swords with some confusion. "Where did you find those?" he asked.

The sun goddess gave him a sly grin as she tossed one of the training swords towards him. "I borrowed them," she said, trying to suppress a snicker as her companion clumsily attempted to catch the wooden blade.

He gave an exasperated sigh as the hilt of the sword bounced from his hand, reaching down to pick up the fallen weapon before turning back to the goddess. "You mean you stole them."

"Trust me," Amaterasu said, "Now that he's just slain Orochi and rescued the woman he loves, the whereabouts of his training swords is probably the last thing Nagi cares about at the moment." The wolf-girl's face suddenly turned serious as she brought her sword out in front of her with a flourish, feet dropping into a fighting stance. "Now then," she said, "Let's see if you're as clumsy holding that thing as you are trying to catch it."

Yuro's face briefly flushed with embarrassment as he brought his own blade in front of him, trying to replicate his partner's stance as best he could, the heavy weight of the wooden weapon feeling unbalanced and foreign in his hands.

The goddess's sword dropped as she took a couple steps forward, looking at him intently as she walked in a slow circle around him, stopping once she was again in front of the youth. Her face suddenly dropped its serious tones, a smirk appearing as she pushed him backwards.

Her companion yelped in surprise as he lost his balance, dropping his weapon as he fell backwards, hitting the cave floor painfully. "What was that for?" he asked as he returned to his feet, grabbing the training weapon as he did so.

"Your stance is wrong," she said, pointing at his feet with her free hand. "Widen your feet and center your weight. It'll give you more flexibility when attacking and keep you from losing your balance when you block." She brought her weapon back in front of her as he tried to correct his error. "Now," she said, let's see how well you can swing that thing."

Yuro looked back at her with some concern, briefly glancing at his own sword. "You mean attack you?" he asked, his look of concern growing as his partner nodded, the latter rolling her eyes as she did so. "Ammy," he said, "These seem kind of heavy. I don't want to hurt you."

Amaterasu chuckled a bit at that, her face quickly growing serious again. "You won't."

The youth stepped forward nervously as she gestured towards him to get on with it. Deciding to try a simple horizontal attack, he swung the blade towards her, the weight of the weapon feeling more balanced now that he had corrected some of his initial stance errors. The goddess easily deflected the weak strike with a turn of her blade, swiftly bringing her weapon around in a spin as she counterattacked. Yuro barely had enough time to bring his own sword up to block, the force of the attack staggering him backwards a few steps.

She smirked at him again as she reset her stance. "So you know," she said, "I was able to swing a sword better than that when I was five."

Trying his best to ignore her taunting, Yuro moved forward again, this time attempting a series of cross strikes, putting a bit more force into his attacks. The wolf-girl again turned his strikes aside with little difficulty, the goddess backing up as her companion attempted to press the attack. Ducking under the last strike, she aimed a swift kick towards his sword hand, knocking the weapon out of the youth's hand and disorienting him long enough for her to step forwards and again push him to the ground.

He grunted in pain as he hit the floor again, giving her a quick glare as he slowly got up. "I'm beginning to feel like this isn't a fair fight," he said, reaching to pick up his fallen weapon.

Amaterasu gave him another sly smile as she shook her head, ignoring his complaints. "That was better," she said, "But you leave too much time between your attacks and you let up too easily." She absentmindedly twirled her blade in the air, shifting it from one hand to the other and back again with a series of smooth, clean motions. "Use the momentum from one attack to carry you into the next. You want to be fighting using a single fluid motion rather than a chain of disconnected attacks." Her weapon returned to its ready position. "Try again."

The youth charged at her again, trying to follow her advice as best he could, chaining one attack into the next as he pressed forward. The sun goddess again blocked his attacks, being forced backwards as he kept coming at her. Seeing an opening as fatigue started to slow his advance, she stepped forward with a quick strike, her companion barely bringing his weapon into position to block. Remembering how she had used the momentum from blocking to counterattack earlier, Yuro attempted to replicate the motion, aiming a spinning attack at her that almost caught her off-guard.

Leaning backwards underneath the sudden attack, Amaterasu rolled backwards, giving a quick flourish of her blade as she got to her feet, this time rushing at the youth rather than waiting for him to attack her. Finding himself suddenly on the defensive, Yuro was quickly driven back from the goddess's assault, needing every bit of skill he could muster to block each of her quick, fluid strikes. Despite his best efforts, he was no match for his partner's skill and experience, his blade getting knocked aside on an awkward attempt to parry.

Frustration welled inside him again as the goddess lowered her weapon, her victory clear. "I don't know how to chain together attacks like you do," he said, shaking his head, "I can barely think even just one attack at a time, let alone planning several in advance."

Amaterasu stepped forward, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Don't think," she said, looking him in the eyes for a moment before pulling him in into a sudden kiss. She smiled at him as she pulled away. "Just act on instinct."

Yuro smiled back at her, the sudden display of affection helping to forget his earlier frustration. Before he could reply, he yelped as she pushed him to the ground again. "What was that for?" he asked, glaring at her as he returned to his feet.

"Another lesson for you," she said, "Don't ever let your opponent catch you off guard. Yami and his minions won't hesitate to kill you if you get distracted for even a moment."

"I guess I'm lucky then," he said, looking back at her, momentarily getting lost in her emerald eyes, "Considering that none of Yami's minions happen to be a beautiful sun goddess."

The wolf-girl blushed a bit as he pulled her back in for another kiss, breaking free after what seemed like an eternity. She smiled at him, neither saying anything for few moments, before shoving him back to the ground, this time going to the ground with him.

Yuro grunted in pain as he hit the ground once again, both from the impact and from the sudden weight of the silver-haired maiden on top of him. "Okay," he said, "Now what was that one for?"

She gave him a mischievous grin as she leaned down for another kiss. "You'll find out."

Back in Kamiki Village, Waka stood in the clearing where Amaterasu's shrine stood, the surge of hope he had felt earlier vanished at the sight of his divine wolf, still frozen in stone. Those all-too-familiar feelings of grief and sadness crashed back over him as he stared at the silent statue, the prophet feeling as if he was experiencing all the emotions of the past few days again all at once.

He should have known better. He had seen her escaping her prison in a hundred years time, and his prophecies had never been wrong. He had been so desperate for Amaterasu to return that he had just been looking for any possible excuse to believe that she was back, any reason to think that his premonition of a century of loneliness was merely a nightmare. Perhaps that streak of white he had seen earlier was merely his mind playing tricks on him, showing him what he wanted to see. He turned around, dejected, beginning to walk back down the path returning to the sacred deck.

Suddenly, he felt it.

Waka froze as the feeling of otherness washed over him, the prophet only just now noticing the distorted energy in the air around the shrine, traces of temporal power still hidden in the air. He had worked with this type of energy once before, when he had followed one of his premonitions to the forest of Yoshpet almost a hundred years ago, shortly after he had escaped the demon-plagued Ark of Yamato following its devastating crash-landing. That time, some strange force had guided him into manipulating his power to look into the future of their world's time stream, channeling it in a manner he hadn't known was possible to create a door to another time and place. He hadn't known why the gate was needed back then, only that his visions showed it as being necessary to Amaterasu's journeys.

The moon prophet shut his eyes as he focused the power within him the same way his visions had driven him to do a century ago, mentally reaching out to the residual temporal energy that permeated the area as he tried to gain some grasp as to exactly what it was and how it got there. Almost immediately, he could sense the raw force behind it. The portal Waka had created in Yoshpet had been stable, outputting energy in harmony with the rest of the world. The power he felt now, however, was completely different, as if someone had just brutally punched a hole through time and space. Perhaps whoever had done this had been too desperate, he thought, or perhaps too short on time to adequately channel their power in a stable manner.

He kept searching past that feeling of foreignness, hoping to find some clue as to who or what had caused the event. Though faint, Waka could feel bits of emotion hidden within the power left behind around the shrine, feelings of desperation and fear confirming his previous hypothesis. Whoever had done this had been running from something, and had, in panic, tore open a portal to here, presumably to escape their pursuer. There was more to it than that, though, as the prophet sensed something else hidden deeper within that layer of emotions, traces of a light that was more than familiar to him.

What he had seen on the sacred deck hadn't been his mind playing tricks on him, he realized. It _had_ been Amaterasu dashing through the village earlier - just not _his_ Amaterasu. She had fled here, running from something, likely without even realizing where she was going.

Waka frowned. In all his years together with the sun goddess, he had never seen her willingly run away from a fight, certainly not with as much fear and panic as he had felt. There was something else here, something hidden even further within the field of energy he had tapped into. Redoubling his efforts, he dug deeper into the temporal force, searching for any hint as to who or what the goddess had been running from.

Almost immediately, he crumbled to his knees, losing his concentration as pure darkness coursed through him. Though it had been over a century ago, Waka immediately recognized the feeling. It had been the same thing he had felt as a little boy, the night the eight-headed serpent had destroyed his home on the Lunar Plain. Whatever dark presence that had pursued Amaterasu was, it was the same being responsible for all of Orochi's atrocities. The destruction of the Lunar Plain, the death of his family, the massacre on the Ark of Yamato-all of it had been a part of its grand scheme.

His realization was interrupted by the telltale screech of an imp behind him, Waka instinctively reaching for Pillow Talk as he turned about. Drawing and activating the weapon, he brought it around towards the creature in a single fluid stroke, the beam sword slicing the offender in half with little difficulty. Turning at the sound of another one of the creatures, he looked up to see another three blue imps gliding above him.

Bringing his sword to bear on the newcomers, Waka took a moment to focus his energy before leaping up towards the first of the three imps, using his powers of levitation to amplify his jump's height well beyond that of any human, slashing at it with the blade of plasma. To its credit, the creature was fast, narrowly managing to twist itself in midair just enough to dodge the attack before aiming its own strike at him. Unfazed, the prophet let the momentum of his missed swing carry him into a spin, his free hand drawing the katana sheathed at his side as he did so, gracefully swinging the steel blade towards his assailant, dispatching it.

The other two gliders had reached him by then, both trying to dive-bomb him in the hope of knocking him out of the air. Channeling his energy once again, Waka strafed to the side of the first of the pair, his levitation granting him much better agility in midair than one would expect. The second imp screeched in surprise as the prophet's momentum carried him towards it, the sound getting cut off midway through as a quick strike of the beam sword ended the creature. Continuing the rotation of his swing, Waka turned back towards the first imp, throwing his katana towards it as he did so, the blade landing square in the creature's chest.

Spotting no further threats, the moon prophet cancelled his levitation, dropping gracefully back to the ground as he disengaged Pillow Talk, catching his thrown blade with his other hand as he landed. Waka glanced back towards the sky where the creatures had been as he sheathed his weapons, thinking back on the encounter.

Although Orochi's army of imps and other demons hadn't disappeared with the defeat of their master, they had been left scattered and without any direction, forcing the creatures into hiding. This had been the first time Waka had seen a coordinated attack by the beasts since then. He thought back to the echoes of the dark presence he had felt only moments earlier. It couldn't have been coincidence that he had been attacked by imps mere seconds after he had felt that surge of power. Whatever that source of darkness had been, it was clearly after Amaterasu, and even if it wasn't his Amaterasu, it was still his duty, his responsibility, to protect and aid her as well as he could.

For the first time since he had seen his beloved turn to stone, his feelings of despair vanished as they were overtaken by a wave of resolve. He had failed to protect the sun goddess in her journey to the past, but he now had the chance to make up for that failure. He would do everything in his power to help this incarnation of the goddess, to redeem himself for his inability to save his Amaterasu, and maybe, just maybe, finally find himself some peace from all the sadness and despair.

At this point, it was the least he could hope for.

* * *

This chapter took me considerably longer to write than I hoped - I kept going back and forth between making it all following Waka, which seemed to flow better but felt too short and left me with too little content for a separate Ammy/Yuro chapter that would break off where I wanted it to, and going with the back-and-forth between Waka and Ammy/Yuro's perspectives like I went with here, that felt much better content-wise and fit better as to where I wanted to break the story but wasn't quite as fluid as I wanted. I'm still not completely convinced, and if I ever do a re-write of FAE, this'll likely be a chapter that sees more work than others, but it feels passable to me in its current form in relation to the standard of the rest of the story so far.

As I've said in the past, the time-travelling plots allowed by Okami lore can make for some interesting storytelling. In particular, I love the situations it lets me explore with Waka. It lets us see adventures with him even though he isn't around in the present-day storyline of FAE, and gives us some more interesting emotional problems for him to deal with considering the timing of the past he/Ammy/Yuro are in. In this point in time, he has just lost Amaterasu for the first time, someone he loves dearly and from whom he's been nearly inseparable for many years - he hasn't had to live alone without her before, making his situation, even though he knows she will eventual be revived, a difficult one. In some ways, it's even more difficult than the modern-day Amaterasu's situation with the loss of Waka - while Amaterasu has gone through huge amounts of trauma and pain from losing him, she has also had the opportunity to eventually move on and continue living. In comparison, the Waka of this time doesn't have that luxury. He can't move on and find someone else due to the knowledge that Ammy will eventually return to be with him again, but at the same time, finds it near-impossible to cope with the loneliness, particularly when the defeat of Orochi has left him with little work to do.

I've mentioned previously in these notes that two weeks is generally my goal for uploading new chapters for FAE, and that is still true (even though I've been really bad at it as of late). There's a slim chance that the next chapter or two could be looking at a month between, due to general busyness of late (new job, plus end of semester). I'll still do what I can to hit a two week or less turnaround, but no guarantees on that front (at least, not until summer slows things down a bit). I know there's quite a few of you that have been waiting for updates to this, and appreciate your patience.

As always, constructive feedback is appreciated, and thank you all for the continued support!


	14. To Survive

He was pacing again.

Chibiterasu barely even noticed he was doing it, so distracted he had been by the monumental tasks that had been set in front of him. Around him, the chamber of the temple he used as his personal quarters was a far cry from its normal, organized state. Maps and charts were scattered all over the room, on every surface that even remotely resembled a desk or table, along with the mess of reports on the movements of Izanami's demon army from the few Celestial scouts that had survived the initial attack on the divine realm.

Amaterasu's son was no stranger to difficult tasks. The fate of the mortal world had lied in his hands many times before, from his first adventures as a pup facing Akuro, to his time serving as defender of the mortal realm in his mother's stead during the centuries she spent mourning the loss of his father. This, however, was different. This was an enemy that even his mother had been unable to stand up against. He knew he stood no chance in combat against Yami or Izanami, let alone both of them - perhaps more importantly, the Celestials he had been charged with protecting knew it as well.

For the first time in a long while, Chibiterasu was terrified. Not of the forces of the maiden of death, but rather of the people he was meant to protect. How could he lead them when he stood no more chance than any of them against the evils arrayed against them? More so, how could any of them follow him knowing that the gods had already failed to protect them once against Izanami's demons?

The distant chime of a bell distracted him from his rambling thoughts. Three chimes, he counted. Only a quarter hour left.

It was the coming meeting on the hour that had left him in such a poor state. He and Tsukuyomi had scheduled it with whatever high-ranking Celestials were still alive, to discuss and plan on their next course of action. That, of course, had been before his uncle had set off for Kamui in search of a way to rendezvous with Amaterasu. Now, he alone would have to convince the others that leaving the apparent safety of the temple for the distant remains of Kamiki Village was their best option - and also explain the sudden departure of one of the strongest warriors they had at their disposal.

The child of the sun shook himself from his thoughts once again. He had little time left, and he would need every bit of it to prepare for the discussions ahead.

Explaining Tsukuyomi's departure would be the simpler of the two tasks. Although there would surely be questioning as to what help Amaterasu could provide them, considering that she had already been defeated by the darkness against them once, there was no arguing that their chances of survival were magnitudes better with her than without. Not only was his mother's strength a great asset, but her presence would also allow the resurrection of the rest of the brush gods.

Convincing them to follow him to Kamiki, however, was another matter entirely. Many Celestials had already begun to get comfortable here in the few days they that spent at the temple, and leaving what appeared to be a safe haven on a journey across demon-infested lands for a place that wasn't even guaranteed to be safe, let alone standing, was an idea that certainly wouldn't sit well with them. On top of that, the gods now had a fairly poor record at successfully defending the Celestials, and it would be hard enough to earn their trust to begin with. That said, it was something that had to be done. Without the support of the Celestial leadership, he had no chance of getting all the survivors to follow him.

Chibiterasu quickly moved across the room to grab the latest reports of the demons' movements, feverishly scouring the document for what had likely been the hundredth time that day. Convincing the Celestial leadership that they needed to leave the temple wouldn't be terribly difficult - it didn't take a genius to understand that one of Izanami and Yami's first targets would be the temple dedicated to the sun goddess. The tricky part would be persuading them that Kamiki was the correct place to go from here, and order to successfully do that, he needed to prove both that it would be a safe place for them to take refuge and that there was a safe route to get there.

He tried to ignore the distant ticking of the clock as he poured over the report. Crossing the Ryoshima Coast would likely be the most difficult part of the journey - with the destruction that had happened in Kyoto from Susanoo's actions, the area was rife with fear and negative emotion - magnets for the demons that served the dark goddess. From the few supply journeys he had personally made, he had seen plenty of them rampaging around the area, and considering that the coast was relatively flat and unobstructed, it would be hard to evade the dark creatures trying to make their way to Taka Pass normally.

He glanced out the window at the distant ruins of the city that had once been called Sei-an, the once-proud metal buildings now a crumbled mess, aside from the building that had once been Himiko's palace, still protected by Amaterasu's blessing, a lone beacon of hope in a desolate world.

An idea sprung to his mind as he saw the relatively untouched building. His mother had once spoke of the hidden tunnel that connected the palace to the old temple towards the entrance to Taka Pass. With the good condition of the old palace, it was possible, perhaps even likely, that that passage still stood now.

The clock chimed again, signalling the coming hour. Chibiterasu took a deep breath as he walked out of the room, towards the meeting site. He had a rough plan. Hopefully it would be enough.

The grand hall of the temple had been the designated meeting place, and in the short time since the leaders of the remaining Celestials had arrived it had already been converted to a war room of sorts, bearing a striking resemblance to the scattered mess in Chibiterasu's personal quarters. Even as Amaterasu's heir walked through the tall archway leading to the hall, he could hear the sound of fierce discussion as those present were already arguing over the best move to respond to the information revealed in their latest scouting reports. As Chibiterasu's steps began to reverberate through the room, their rabble ceased, the committee turning to him as he entered.

Katashi, the eldest of the group, rose to greet the sun god as he approached. "Chibiterasu-kamisama, good of you to join us. We were just discussing the latest reports on the demons' movements. As I'm sure you understand, the latest news is rather troubling to many of us."

The sun god nodded politely. "I've already looked over them, Elder Katashi. It would seem the creatures have been getting bolder in their attacks on the surrounding area." That was an understatement - judging by all the reports he had heard, and the stories of the few human survivors of the area that had fled to the temple for refuge, Izanami's forces had already razed several smaller settlements in the outskirts of what had been Kyoto. With Amaterasu out of the picture, the demons seemed to have nothing left to fear.

One of the younger members of the group that had been sitting opposite Katashi quickly interjected before the elder could respond. "Yes, and as I've been saying, it's only a matter of time before they turn their sights on this place. We're sitting ducks here. We need to move-"

Another Celestial cut in, Chibiterasu recognizing the new speaker as Hinata, one of the Celestials' spiritual leaders. "We should do no such thing, Akio. Your warriors may have the strength and endurance needed to cross these dangerous lands, but the rest of us do not." The priestess glanced at the cast on her arm at that statement, the broken limb only one of many injuries inflicted on the Celestials during their escape from the divine realm. She turned to Chibiterasu, continuing. "We are in a well-defended place that is blessed by Amaterasu herself. We can remain here, safe, while the gods work to cleanse the darkness from this world."

"Wait and rely on the gods?" Akio said, his voice rising further as he stood. "Rely on them like we did when they failed to keep Orochi from driving us off the Plain? Rely on them like we did when our brethren boarded the Ark at their suggestion? Rely on them like we did when they promised to protect us from the latest attack on our homeland?" He took a breath as he paused, trying not to let his anger completely overcome him. "Not once have the gods been successful in their promises of protection for our people, and all of that was with the sun goddess and the brush gods linked to her still in the picture. The only 'gods' we have left to put our faith in now are the moon god, who hasn't bothered to show his face since we escaped the Plain, and Amaterasu's _pup_."

Against his better judgement, Chibiterasu took the bait. "You may be one of your people's strongest warriors, Akio, but you haven't faced anything close to what I have. Need I remind you that I saved this world once already, while I was actually still a pup. I'd say I've gotten considerably stronger in the thousands of years since."

"Don't you dare pretend to know what I've faced, Chibiterasu." Akio said, visibly angered. "My father died getting us to safety on the Celestial Plain during Orochi's attack, and I spent the two-hundred years after that defending my people from Yami's dark creatures while we waited and waited for our 'gods' to return and cleanse the darkness from our homeland."

Katashi raised his hand, stopping the warrior before he could continue his tirade. "That's quite enough, Akio. Although we are all grateful for what you and your father did to save our people so many years ago, bringing this up now does nothing to help the situation at hand." Akio sat back down after a moment as Katashi paused, though still visibly angry. Despite all that had happened to the Celestials, the elder still commanded a great deal of respect. Katashi turned to the sun god now, continuing. "Although I must say, Chibiterasu, I am as well curious as to why none of us has seen your uncle these past few days."

Chibiterasu took a deep breath at that question. "Tsukuyomi has left for Kamui in search of the Spirit Gate." The sun god tried not to grimace at the Celestials' shocked expressions. "We… have reason to believe that my mother survived her fight with Yami on the Celestial Plain, but she may have gotten trapped in a different time in the process."

The sun god wasn't surprised to see Akio response first. "You must be joking," the Celestial warrior said, "Your uncle, one of the few remaining gods and one of the best fighters at our disposal, has run off on his own on the mere _hunch_ that Amaterasu may still be alive." The warrior gave an exasperated sigh. "I don't know why I'm even surprised anymore."

It was Hinata's turn to reply to the relatively young Celestial. "If there is any chance that the great goddess is still with us, then Tsukuyomi is correct to try to find her. We need her light now more than ever."

Chibiterasu nodded. "If he can successfully bring back my mother, then we gain both her and the rest of the brush gods. Their combined strength gives us our best chance at surviving and stopping this darkness."

Katashi nodded as well. "Although I would agree with Akio that one our strongest fighters leaving on uncertain information is perhaps a rash decision, I would concur with Lady Hinata that the possibility of finding Amaterasu is too important to ignore. This does not, however, settle the issue of how we move forward here in light of the increasing demon activity across Ryoshima."

"Without Tsukuyomi, it is only more important that we stay put here," Hinata said, "Without his strength, we stand very little chance of getting further away from the city past all those dark creatures."

Chibiterasu shook his head. "Without my uncle, we stand very little chance of surviving any sort of organized attack on the temple. The demons are concentrated on this area at the moment due to all the chaos caused by the attack on the city. The further we can get from it, the safer we'll be for the time being."

For the first time that night, Akio nodded in agreement. "As I have been saying, staying here is suicide. Tsukuyomi's absence only makes it more crucial that we move as soon as possible. We can move further from the city, find a more fortified location to hold out until the moon god can return with Amaterasu." The warrior paused for a moment, in thought. "Kusa Village, perhaps. High in the mountains, only a single point of entry to the town, and we can retreat into the Gale Shrine if needed. Even though we only have a few soldiers left, we can hold it relatively easily."

"A wise option," Katashi said, turning to Chibiterasu.

The sun god took another deep breath. This would be the difficult part. "My uncle had some thoughts on that, actually." He paused, trying not to look unnerved by all the eyes on him. "He believed our best course of action would be to make our way to old Kamiki Village. The gate near Konohana may still be active, and if it is, its power should prevent all but the most powerful demons from getting through to us if they spread that far."

"Kamiki is halfway across Nippon from here," Akio said, shaking his head. "And most of that journey will be across wide open terrain with little cover or protection. We don't have the strength or manpower needed to escort this many people that far under those conditions."

"The same is true of the path to Kusa, Akio," Hinata said, "We've already seen the number of dark creatures prowling the coastline leading to Taka Pass, and the Pass itself may very well be the same way. Both are just as exposed." The priestess shifted some of the documents on the table to reveal a map of Nippon. "The path to North Ryoshima is closer and less occupied by the demons," she said, pointing to the relevant section of the map as she did so, "We could perhaps make it there, but there are few places where we could take shelter there that would be as safe as here. Kabegami's Tower, perhaps."

"It would take too much time to ferry all of us across the water to get there," Chibiterasu replied, "The old palace in the city wasn't damaged in the attack, and there used to be a tunnel between it and the edge of Ryoshima. If it's still there, we could use it get to Taka Pass without too much trouble, but after that things get more problematic." The sun god quickly glanced back at the latest scouting report, even though he had most of the information on it memorized at this point. "The creatures do seem focused on this area for now, so if we're fortunate, they'll be much less numerous the further we get from the city, and we should have enough cover to evade any of them once we reach Agata."

"That still leaves a journey across most of Shinshu Field," Akio said, again shaking his head. "And that's as wide-open terrain as we could possibly find. Kusa is fairly close to the path from Ryoshima where the tunnel you speak of exits. We can easily make it there, with a little luck."

"No," the sun god said, "We've already determined that moving as far away from the city as possible is the best course of action at the moment with the demons occupied here. Shinshu is far enough away that it's unlikely they've established any significant presence there, the gate there will offer us more protection than manmade fortifications, and it'll put us closer to Tsukuyomi for whenever he returns from Kamui." He looked at each of the leaders in turn, hoping the majority of them would see the reason in his argument. "It may be a longer and more uncertain journey, but I think it's worth it."

Katashi was the first to break the silence. "I am not sure this level of risk is something we can afford to play around with, Chibiterasu. Do you truly believe the extra safety of Kamiki is worth risking the lives of every survivor in this temple?"

"My uncle seemed to think so," the sun god said, trying to choose his words wisely. "The only thing I can say with certainty is that this darkness is only going to spread further and further the longer we wait. If we travel to Kusa and later decide to continue to Kamiki, by that point, Taka Pass will be in the same state Ryoshima is in now, maybe worse. This is the best chance we'll get at reaching Kamiki safely."

The elder turned to Akio. "If we were to make this journey, would we have enough warriors to make it through to Konohana's village?"

Akio remained silent for a moment, thinking. "If the lands past Kusa are in the same shape as here, not a chance." The warrior turned to look at Chibiterasu. "If he's right about the demons having a smaller presence to the north, however, it might be possible."

Katashi stared at the map for a moment before looking back at the rest of the committee. "If Amaterasu has indeed survived her duel with Yami, she will likely still be injured and not at her full strength. If we have reason to believe we can make it to Kamiki, and doing so will make it easier for her and Tsukuyomi to rejoin us, then I believe it is worth trying." He turned to the fourth member of the table. "Lady Hinata?"

The priestess shook her head. "I still believe leaving this place is foolish, but Kamiki was once the great goddess's resting place so many centuries ago. Her blessings there are powerful, and should we manage to get there, her power should protect us. If we must go, it is worth the extra journey."

The elder nodded. "Very well then. Spread word to rest of the survivors to prepare to depart. We can plan fully for the journey over the next few days while our people prepare to move."

"We can't wait a few days," Chibiterasu said, "This darkness spreads further with every passing minute. We've lost enough time here as it is." He looked around the room quickly. The majority of the council seemed skeptical.

To the sun god's surprise, it was Akio that spoke first. "He's right. This darkness spreads further with every passing minute. We can't afford to wait and we can't afford to be slowed down. If it can't get packed in one night or if it's too big for one person to carry, it needs to stay behind."

"These people are not warriors, Akio," Hinata said, standing. "They are not used to the strict discipline you expect, nor should you expect them to be. They will need time to prepare before a journey of this scale."

The Celestial warrior rose to his feet as well, turning to face the priestess. "We do not have the luxury of time, Hinata." He gestured towards the windows on the far wall, towards the ruins of Kyoto. "Look at what these beasts have already done, what they continue to do. We are at war, and our survival depends on our ability to make sacrifices. The comfort of our people is a matter that has no place here, not now."

Before Hinata could respond again, Katashi raised a hand, the two returning to their seats as he spoke. "Akio, Chibiterasu, you are both correct in that time is something we do not have at the moment. But the day is already half gone, and as Hinata mentioned, we will need enough time to gather the necessary supplies for the journey. That cannot happen overnight." The elder paused, in thought. "We will take the rest of today and tomorrow to prepare and plan for the journey. It will give our trackers the opportunity to scout ahead the path to the city so we have the best information possible. Is that acceptable?"

Slowly, each member at the table nodded in agreement, each leaving quickly after to begin making arrangements for the upcoming journey until only Chibiterasu and Akio remained. The sun god sat back in his seat a bit, happy to finally be done with the meeting he had been dreading.

"I'm glad there was at least one person who understands the importance of us not wasting time," Chibiterasu said, turning to the warrior. "Thank you."

"Let me be clear, Chibiterasu-_kamisama_," Akio said as he stood, a mocking tone in his voice as spoke the formal title, "My support of your decision was solely due to the fact that I have no plans to let myself or any of my people die because of our fellow leaders' inability to see the necessity of finding safer refuge. You may be a capable fighter, but I meant everything I said at the beginning of this council. I have no intent to entrust my safety, nor that of my people, to you or any of your fellow 'gods' ever again." The Celestial warrior began to walk out of the room, turning back briefly as he did so. "I will fight by your side if it comes to it, pup. But don't make the mistake of assuming I'm your ally."

The sun god groaned once the remaining Celestial had left the room.

He knew it wasn't going to be easy.

* * *

I feel like a month between updates is relatively good, all things considered (it was up to six months at one point, so that's not a high bar to hit). Writing the Chibiterasu sections always seems like it's a little more difficult for me than others, maybe due to the fact that I just never got into Okamiden quite as much as I did the original, and maybe also due to the fact that his primary challenges at this point are more interpersonal rather than challenges of combat and action - it's a little different pace than I (and this story) is used to.

The one thing I was looking forward to with this chapter was finally getting the chance to explore the Celestials a bit further. We are told very little about them in the games, and the games also heavily imply that it was unlikely any of them survived the massacre on the Ark of Yamato. This chapter gave me the opportunity to explain the survival and rebuilding of the Celestials in the divine realm after the events of Okami/den.

I should take the chance to mention - I will be incredibly busy the next few weeks as RTX draws closer, and will be out-of-town at the end of the month for that convention (do feel free to say hello if you see me there, as long as I'm not working the Grifball booth). It is very unlikely that I will be able to write much, if at all, while there. Currently I hope to have chapter 15 before I leave, and 16 will likely be about 3 weeks after that unless I find time to work on it while in Austin.

As always, constructive feedback is always welcome, and I appreciate the continued support.


	15. Remember the Night

The worst part of Namahages were their shrieks, Sukā decided.

Sure, they were ugly little things, and their constant presence made travelling the frozen wastes of Kamui dangerous at worst and an annoyance at best, but their piercing screech was nothing short of painful. Not only that, but they insisted on using it constantly. They weren't even enough of a challenge to make defeating one feel like an accomplishment - if anything, fighting them was more like swatting an incessant mosquito.

A giant mosquito that wielded an oversized cleaver, that is.

Her point was accentuated as one of the blade-wielding creatures in the pack they had just encountered, already the third of the day, decided to use that blood-curdling sound against her, the girl trying not to grimace from the sound as the beast lunged at her.

To be fair, she thought, it was probably more effective against her than that blade would be.

The demon, like all the others of its kind, was slow and clumsy, and she dropped back a step, ducking under its swing as she unsheathed her twin daggers. As it tried to regain its footing from the missed attack, she charged at it, letting loose a wild cry of her own as she drove the knives into its abdomen, knocking it to the ground.

Behind her, she heard her companion shout a warning to stay down as there was a rush of wind above her from the dark-haired warrior leaping towards the other two blade-wielding creatures in the pack, his katana already in his hand. With a quickness that shouldn't have been possible for a man of his size, he entered into a whirling attack, extending his blade to its full length as he did so, the long blade passing through the air where she would have been had she not heeded his warning. He spun twice before touching the ground, by which point the two creatures were dead, cut clean in half by the unexpected attack.

"Now you're just showing off," she called out at him as she rose to her feet, turning towards the lone Namahage that remained. This one seemed to be a little more competent than the normal variety, the creature already having summoned several floating heads, one of which was already gathering energy for what she could only assume was some sort of projectile attack.

Sukā didn't need to wait long to be proven right as the gathered energy shot out towards them in a concentrated laser beam. Both warriors reflexively jumped out of the way, the girl throwing both her daggers at the floating heads as she landed with practiced accuracy, each of the heads falling to the ground as they got hit before dissipating. Before the creature could regroup and attempt to summon more of its floating cannons, she dashed at it, drawing her curved sword and cleaving it with a single deft motion.

After briefly scanning the area to ensure no more of the creatures were lying in wait, she sheathed her blade, moving to retrieve her thrown weapons. She looked back over at her companion, who had already retracted his own weapon.

"You know that thing looks completely ridiculous, right?" she asked.

"It's effective," he said as he sheathed the weapon, moving to begin returning to the trail they had been following.

"Sure it is," she said, falling in behind him. "You just look like you're compensating for something while you use it." She didn't need to look at him to know he was glaring at her.

"More practical than a curved sword," he replied, "You know there's a reason nobody's made those in any real numbers in centuries, right?"

Her trained eyes picked up another group of Namahages ahead, and Sukā changed her path to go around them, signalling her companion to follow only to find he was already doing the same thing. "I don't know if you've noticed, but they don't make that many katanas these days either."

"So I hear," he said, keeping one eye on the distant demons in case any of them tried anything sneaky.

"It's all projectile weapons these days," she continued, "Effective, but boring. There just isn't the same level of artistry to it."

For once, he actually looked back at her. "I think that's the first thing you've said all day that I actually agree with."

She laughed for a moment, quickly stopping as she noticed the wall of dense foliage in front of them, her companion doing the same. The sight took her a moment to register - although the stories of her village told of the forest's rough location, she couldn't remember having seen it in the distance as they approached. Perhaps the tales of the charms placed on the forest to prevent its discovery held true after all.

"I'm assuming that's it," Tsukuyomi said. He had noticed it a fair distance back, although he could feel the forest's magic attempting to wipe the memory of it from his mind. The protective magic covering the forest was powerful, perhaps even enough so to be successful on a brush god, but the lunar deity was a bit more powerful than that.

That and, of course, the fact that he was very familiar with the deity that had cast that magic in the first place. Illusions and deception had always been one of Yumigami's strong suits.

Yumi. He tried not let the old memories come flooding back at the thought of her name, but they burst through anyway. All the nights they had spent together on their early days on the Celestial Plain. The days she had traveled to the Moon Cave to visit him during the time he had spent trapped inside Nagi's sword, his spirit and power serving as Orochi's prison. All the times she had come to keep him company during the long nights he had spent guarding the divine palace while his sister mourned and grieved.

_Screaming in pain as her essence was ripped from her._

No. Not that one. He involuntarily shut his eyes in a futile attempt to stop that memory from coming.

_Just find Amaterasu_, he thought. _Yumi can come back. Just need to find Ammy._

"Hey," Sukā said, snapping her companion back to reality, "You okay there?"

Tsukuyomi nodded after a moment, taking a step towards the entrance to the forest. "Let's go."

Before he could finish that step, there was a loud bellow, the earth shaking as some perverse, twisted recreation of a bull burst from the treeline. The thing looked like some sort of experiment gone wrong, with the body and head of a bull attacked to the abdomen of a spider, as well as two human-like arms in addition to its hooves, each arm holding a large club.

"At least this one doesn't make my ears bleed," the red-haired girl said, drawing her curved blade.

For the first time in a while, Tsukuyomi smiled at the prospect of an actual challenge. The common fodder they usually found was just tedious and boring to deal with. This one might actually be fun.

Before either could make a move, the beast roared at them as it charged, both warriors rolling aside from the creatures wicked horns. As the more agile of the two, Sukā was the first to respond, leaping at it before it could turn back around, aiming a flurry of rapid strikes at its side. To her surprise, its hide was tough, her assault leaving only a couple of marks. It's counterattack was more effective as the creature turned with surprising speed, hitting her with a swing if its club as it did so, the girl crying out as she was knocked into the air, bouncing onto the ground in a rough landing.

Before the creature could finish her off with another charge attack, Tsukuyomi drew its attention, throwing three of his moon daggers in rapid succession, each hitting the beast with the full force of its shockwave, the bull-hybrid staggering back a couple of steps from the impact. Taking advantage of the opportunity, the moon god charged forward as he drew his own blade, hitting it with a quick slash across the steel mask it wore.

The creature howled in pain as the mask shattered, revealing a face that managed to be even more grotesque than its body, looking like some sort of hybrid between a fly and a spider. To his surprise, the beast's horns had actually been a part of the mask as well, the sharp tusks falling harmlessly to the ground without the mask to support them.

The beast reared back as it roared again, and Tsukuyomi narrowly managed to step back in time as it blew a wave of frost at him, freezing the air where he had just been. As it dropped back to the ground, it struck the earth with both clubs, sending out a shockwave that knocked him off his feet.

Before it could follow-up, it was again interrupted as Sukā charged at it with her twin knives, the girl sliding underneath the creature as she got close, stabbing its belly as she did so. This attack proved to be more effective than her initial attempt as the beast again bellowed in pain, turning and aiming another swing of its club at her.

She was ready for it this time, hurdling over it as it passed before charging again, swinging for its gruesome face. It roared again as she approached, this time in her face, the sheer force of the sound staggering her backwards. The creature took a breath before rearing back again, attempting to freeze its adversary where she stood before she could regain her balance.

Once again, Tsukuyomi managed to narrowly beat the attack, tackling Sukā out of the way of the frost attack, quickly rolling to his feet as he landed… directly into the hybrid's follow-up swing.

As the moon god hit the ground, the creature drove its club towards him in an overhead swing, the deity just barely managing to regain his bearings in time to roll away from the blow. Before he could get up, it aimed a second swing at him, quicker this time.

Sukā was on her feet again, and the girl leapt back at the demon, letting loose a yell as she drove one of her daggers into its raised arm, the creature bellowing in pain as its attack was interrupted. Before she could follow up her initial strike, however, the beast shook its arm forcefully, forcing her to grip the blade lodged in its arm with all her strength to avoid being tossed off. Unfortunately for the girl, however, her strength was far less than her adversary's, and she quickly found her grip slipping off the hilt of the ornate knife, getting thrown in the direction of the treeline.

Tsukuyomi watched as his companion screamed as she slammed into the trunk of a tree, the girl crumbling weakly to the ground, barely conscious. The beast reared back again as it charged its frost attack, giving the moon god just enough time to jump in the air above it, aiming the last moon dagger on his belt at its grotesque face, the creature sent stumbling back as it roared painfully from both the knife and the surge of energy the blade had unleashed. Turning to face the deity, it sent what frost energy it had changed into the ground directly where Tsukuyomi was about to land, the moon god barely managing to keep his footing as he landed onto the slippery surface.

However, the slight stumble the patch of ice had caused him had been just enough to delay him, and the deity was a second too late to dodge a swing from the beast's club. The creature roared again, triumphantly, as it gathered in energy for another ice attack at the fallen god.

Time seemed to slow for Tsukuyomi as he instinctively reached for a throwing knife that wasn't there, his hand instead closing on the smooth, cold metal of the medallion he had avoided using for centuries.

Another memory came to him.

He was back on the Celestial Plain, at the base of the pagoda that watched over the world, the divine realm looking as beautiful as it normally did. Despite the peace and tranquility it was enjoying that night, however, there was a pall over the floating realm, the land itself seemingly joining the great goddess of the sun in mourning as she tried to come to terms with the loss of her beloved that had occurred only a few days prior.

He remembered feeling a comforting arm wrap around him as Yumigami leaned on his side, the normally light-hearted goddess even feeling the effects of the gloominess around them.

"Tsuki," she said, whispering as she tilted her head a bit to look at him.

He looked back at her quizzingly as she shifted a bit, putting that medallion in his hand. He broke his hand away from hers as he inspected the object. It was a bright silver, reflecting and bending the light of the moon in an almost unnatural manner, the medallion itself forged in the shape of an ornate moon. "What is it?" he asked, turning it in his hand and watching the moonlight dance off of its polished surface.

"It's a trump card."

The moon god looked back at her in confusion. "A what?"

"A trump card," she repeated, smirking for a moment. "You're one of the best fighters I know, Tsuki. But you're also one of the most stubborn." She paused as she looked away briefly, her demeanor turning unusually serious. "After seeing what Ammy is going through with Waka gone… I can't let that happen to you." She nodded towards the medallion. "I forged it from moonsilver with the help of some of the other brush gods. When you finally run into something stronger and more stubborn than you, it'll keep you safe for me."

Tsukuyomi looked away from the medallion to turn to her. "What does it do?"

She grinned at that, her previous seriousness fading away. "You'll see."

"Yumi," he said, glaring at her. "What does it do?"

She just kept smirking at him. "You'll like it. Trust me."

"You've said that a lot of times in the past, and it's never been true."

He heard her laugh - gods, how he missed that sound - and the memory faded, the deity finding himself looking at the considerably less welcome face of the monster that was preparing to end him. As the beast prepared to unleash its attack, Tsukuyomi raised his hand towards it, clutching the now-glowing piece of silver as he channeled his own lunar energy into the artifact. There was a flash of light, and the beast halted its attack as it dropped back to its feet, backing away a bit from the blinding glare.

As the glow began to fade enough for the combatants to gain some visibility, the moon god could see a thousand flickering lights in the air, flying back and forth as if possessed, and he slowly became aware of an angry buzzing sound. They were bees, he realized as the flare of moonlight faded further. Bees that had been set on fire, the creatures somehow managing to still fly as they darted around in the sky in a panic, yet one that seemed oddly controlled.

"Damn it, Yumi," he said under his breath, "That isn't funny."

The beast backed away further as the flaming insects began to advance towards it, and Tsukuyomi hurriedly ran over to help up Sukā, the moon god assuming that they had little time to retreat into the woods before their adversary figured out Yumigami's illusion.

The two only managed to take a couple of steps into the forest before Tsukuyomi heard the creature bellow in pain, the deity looking back in surprise to see the creature aflame as each of the insects collided with it in an explosion of fire and smoke. The insects hadn't been mere illusions, he realized - the other brush gods must have had helped Yumigami give her magic substance. In a matter of seconds, the demon was dead on the ground, its corpse charred to a husk, with no further sign of the goddess's power.

With no further sign of danger, the two backed out of the forest into what remained of the battlefield to collect their fallen weapons. As the moon god sheathed the last of his throwing knives, he noticed the glint of the silvery medallion that had saved them lying on the ground. He picked it up, examining it for a moment. That otherworldly glow it once had, the way it seemed to bend and distort light the way his and Yumigami's illusions did, had faded along with the burst of power it had unleashed, the silver trinket having expended all of its stored energy to power the night goddess's enchantment.

_It was a hell of a trick_, he thought,_ even if we can't use it again_. He looked back at what was left of the battlefield as he put on the medallion, the only real functional use it had now. _Still, wish she hadn't chosen that for her 'trump card.'_ Leave it to Yumi to turn his childhood fear into… whatever that was.

When the two of them were growing up on the Celestial Plain, they had been wandering the forests of the divine realm along with Moegami when they had encountered a beehive within the verdant woods. The brush god of flames had decided to test his budding powers by igniting the structure, some of its inhabitants burning along with their home while others managed to escape and chase away the offending deities. It hadn't been a pleasant experience.

With their equipment recovered, the two travellers entered the mystical forest for real, Tsukuyomi still distracted by what they had just seen. His thoughts were interrupted as they stopped at a clearing a short distance into the forest, Sukā approaching him as best as she could in her battered state.

"So what exactly was all that?" she asked, sitting down on what remained of a fallen tree trunk, too weak and exhausted to continue standing.

The moon god sat on similar natural bench across from her, absentmindedly inspecting the medallion around his neck. "An old friend gave it to me a while back. To help keep me safe, she said." He shook his head a bit. The artifact Yumigami had given him had certainly done its job well.

If only he could say he had done as good a job protecting her. Truthfully, it had always been part of why he had always been so protective of Amaterasu - yes, she was his sister, and he of course cared for her and wanted her safe, but the thought that losing Ammy would also mean losing the one person he would do anything for had always been too much to bear.

"Was she that 'exception' you were talking about when we first met?"

The moon god sat there for a few moments before nodding. "Her name was Yumi."

The red-haired maiden looked away as the silence began to turn awkward. "You two were… close, I'm guessing?"

Tsukuyomi nodded again. "Our situation was similar to yours. The demons drove us from our home. Yumi and I… we got… separated." It wasn't the whole truth, of course - there was no way to tell that without explaining his own divinity, which he still would rather not do. It tended to be a long and difficult story to explain to mortals, and they wouldn't believe it half of the time anyway.

"Separated… So you're saying there's a chance she might still be alive?"

Another nod.

Sukā looked at him questioningly. "You said you searching for your sister before," she said, "Why aren't you searching for her?"

The moon god paused as he considered his next words. "In a way, I am." He noticed his companion's confused look before continuing. "I know my sister well enough to hazard a guess as to where she might be, and she's one of the few fighters in the world who could best me. If anyone can help me find Yumi, it's her." He turned to the red-haired girl. "You said you had a partner that you got separated from as well, if I remember correctly."

Sukā nodded. "Yeah. Daiki." She paused before continuing. "He was my oldest friend. We trained as trackers together, ended up being one of the best hunting pairs in our village." She closed her eyes briefly, recalling memories she wished she didn't have to remember. "That was why we got separated from our village, actually. We were out hunting when the creatures attacked, got cut off from heading back to the rest of our people. There were more of them than I've ever seen. We tried to fight our way back, but there were too many." She sighed, shutting her eyes momentarily again. "Daiki took a blade that was meant for me."

"I'm sorry," Tsukuyomi said, glancing away for a moment. "It sounds like you two were close."

"Not the way you think," she said, "Not… romantically or anything. I think he might have wished we were once, and he was my best friend, but he had, well… the wrong 'equipment,' if you know my meaning." She sighed again. "That's partly why I've been trying to find my people so badly. Things might be a bit more progressive down south, but up here…" The maiden shook her head. "There's more tradition, a lot more people holding on to old ways of thinking. My village is the only place I can remember where I didn't feel constantly judged, the only place I was ever really able to consider home."

"Sukā," the moon god said, pausing as she looked to him expectantly. "When all of this is over, once we find Yumi and my sister, we can help you find them again."

She smiled. "Thank you." Her expression turned more serious as she looked back towards the path leading deeper into the forest. "Guess we shouldn't waste any more time then," she said as she stood, stumbling a bit from the pain and soreness the previous battle had caused her as she attempted to walk towards the path.

Tsukuyomi shook his head at the sight of his battered companion attempting to continue on. "We're not going anywhere," he said, "Not with you in that state. If half the legends are true, the charms protecting this place won't make it an easy journey even at full strength." He looked up towards the the sky, the signs of dusk barely visible past the dense mass of leaves. "We'll rest here for the night, then venture into the woods tomorrow. I can take first watch."

As night drew further over the mortal realm, the moon god settled in for a long watch, the deity remembering all the long nights he had spent doing the same up on the Celestial Plain. Involuntarily, he glanced to his side, half expecting to see Yumigami there like he usually would when standing guard outside the divine palace. _I'll bring you back_, he thought, turning back to look up at the starry sky. _ I promise_.

* * *

Well - that took longer to upload than I originally planned. Whoops.

The good news, though, is that we now have a bunch more information about Yumi/Tsuki's past, as well as some of Sukā's backstory.

As always, constructive feedback is appreciated, and thanks for your continued support.


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